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Allegany County elections office outlines staffing shortfalls, equipment tests and training ahead of 2026
Summary
At its Nov. 4 meeting the Allegany County Board of Elections heard a detailed administrator's report on staffing gaps, a planned battery-life test for poll books, mock‑election training, and voter-registration statistics as the office prepares for the 2026 cycle.
The Allegany County Board of Elections received a wide-ranging administrator's report on Nov. 4 detailing staff vacancies, training exercises and technical testing as the office prepares for the 2026 election cycle.
The administrator (name not specified) said the office has a newly started employee, an open registrar posting with an application deadline of Nov. 7, and one candidate filing reported for October. The office completed a mock election Oct. 1–17 to exercise ballot proofing, database setup, logic and accuracy testing, early-voting simulations, election‑day scenarios, provisional processing, canvassing and auditing. "This exercise gave the staff the opportunity to practice many aspects of the election process," the administrator said.
Why it matters: the practices and tests the office runs now are intended to identify operational gaps long before ballots are cast; staffing and equipment readiness affect whether polling places and early-voting operations run smoothly and on schedule.
Key operational items
- Poll‑book battery test: "We are going to be doing a pull book battery test," the administrator said, noting staff received the test file last week and will start testing on Nov. 6 with a due date of Nov. 20 to estimate the current battery life of poll‑book main batteries from a large random sample.
- Disaster recovery and manuals: the disaster recovery plan is being revised with updated early chapters and is expected to be submitted to the State Board of Elections in late winter/early spring; the election judge manual is under legal review before local customization.
- Warehouse and logistics: warehouse reconfiguration work is expected to begin in December; other departments have cleared stored boxes and some usable shelving remains to be reconfigured for election storage.
- Judge recruitment: as of Oct. 28 the administrator reported 101 Democratic judge responses, 115 Republican responses and 12 unaffiliated responses; staff scheduled meet‑and‑greet sessions for Nov. 13 (2 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.) to bolster recruitment.
- IT and security updates: staff applied October Microsoft security updates and updated third‑party applications on workstations.
- Voter statistics: October activity included 157 additions, 116 subtractions, 81 party changes and 44,870 active registrations (10,816 Democrats; 23,788 Republicans; 58 Green; 70 Working Class; 9,376 Unaffiliated; 762 others).
The administrator thanked staff for quickly standing up training and testing, and said the exercises were "very beneficial." The office is using the results of these tests and trainings to refine operational plans before the 2026 cycle.
Next steps: staff will complete the poll‑book battery test by Nov. 20, continue outreach for judges, finalize the disaster recovery revisions for submission to the State Board of Elections and post job notices for the registrar vacancy (application deadline Nov. 7).
