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Committee backs public-facing vote board link to show roll-call results in near real time
Summary
Following an NCSL primer and an LSO IT demo, the committee directed staff to create a public web link to the House and Senate roll‑call pages so recorded votes will be viewable in near real time; members debated in‑chamber billboards vs. online feeds and raised process and security questions.
The Select Committee heard a two-part briefing Oct. 24 on electronic voting and vote displays and unanimously recommended that staff create a public‑facing link to show roll‑call activity in near real time.
Miss Wendy Madsen of the National Conference of State Legislatures provided a primer on voting systems and display practices, noting Wyoming uses a combination system that captures oral roll calls in an electronic system and was an early leader in distributing recorded roll calls to the public website.
Jamie Schaub (LSO IT) demonstrated a mockup of an in‑chamber vote board showing bill title, required vote, live tallies and color‑coded member names. Schaub explained the data flow: when the chief clerk closes a roll call the system generates a file that is imported to the legislative management system and published to the website — typically within seconds to a minute depending on workload. He cautioned that screenshots taken while a vote remains open are not the official record; the mockup includes a clear "vote closed" indicator to mark the official tally.
Committee members debated tradeoffs: several argued a visible board enhances public perception of transparency; others warned a live, prominent in‑chamber display could encourage vote‑change gamesmanship and lengthen voting windows (citing examples from Congress). Members discussed lower‑impact options: a camera that zooms to a clerk's screen during a roll call, a separate public web link that displays the clerk's voting screen, or wall boards in the chamber. LSO said the voting application is a web app that could be exposed by link; the voting machine itself would remain isolated from write access.
Senator Larson moved to pursue the concept Schaub showed and present options to management council; Senator Case seconded. After staff explained feasible implementation paths (dedicated web links for House and Senate roll‑call displays and an automatic toggle to show the vote display while a roll call is open), the committee voted unanimously to request that LSO provide a public‑facing vote board link so roll‑call votes will be viewable in near real time.
LSO will scope technical work and training needs and return with an implementation plan for management council consideration.
