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Madison County clerk praises smooth turnout, flags touchscreen calibration issue with ballot-marking devices
Summary
County Clerk Kenny Barger told the Madison County Fiscal Court that four days of in-person voting produced 42,915 voters (a 56% turnout) and that calibration/software quirks in large-screen ballot-marking devices required daily recalibration though a random hand-count audit matched machine results.
County Clerk Kenny Barger told the Madison County Fiscal Court on Nov. 12 that the recent election ran well overall but revealed recurring calibration and software issues with the county’s large-screen ballot-marking devices.
Barger said the four days of in-person, no-excuse voting produced 42,915 votes — a 56% turnout across the county — and that early voting outpaced election-day turnout. “Early turnout was 29% and election day turnout was 27%,” he said, and praised precinct officers and voters for keeping lines moving.
On equipment, Barger described touchscreen calibration problems that can cause the device to register the wrong selection if the screen loses alignment with where a voter touches. He said the touchscreen vendor, ES&S, has acknowledged a software issue and that the county recalibrated machines every morning and moved voters to alternate machines when necessary. “We started early voting; we started to recalibrate every machine every morning,” Barger said. He added that a hand-count audit randomly selected by the Secretary of State examined one scanner and one race from the Folk Center precinct and that the audit matched the machine tally.
Barger urged voters to stop and ask poll workers for help if a machine behaves unexpectedly: the ballot-marking device creates the paper ballot, and a voter has not completed voting until the ballot is scanned. He also said the county will add more check-in clerks, more poll books and more express-capable equipment where needed to reduce bottlenecks.
A magistrate and an attendee praised precinct teams and accessibility of polling locations, noting that some churches and community centers (including the Bridge Church and the Active Living Center) worked well for voters with limited mobility. The court agreed to expand equipment and staffing to reduce check-in delays and continue daily calibration routines until vendor fixes are confirmed.
The county clerk’s office recorded that early voting accounted for the bulk of pre-election turnout and that older voters made up a substantial share of early ballots: Barger said 55% of early voters were 55 and older and 34% were 65 and older, which factored into site-selection decisions for accessible locations.
Next steps: the clerk’s office will continue daily calibration, coordinate with the vendor on software fixes and add staffing and equipment at locations the clerk identifies as check-in bottlenecks.
