Harnett County elections office begins staggered rollout of ballot-on-demand printers; budget and training plans discussed

Unidentified Speaker 5, the elections director, told the Harnett County Board of Elections that ballot-on-demand equipment arrived at the office today but “we are missing a couple of printers, but that's not gonna stop us from moving forward.” The director said remaining printers are sufficient to begin deployment and that vendor representatives Jennifer Sparks and Matt Wise of Printelect will be asked to provide setup and training at early-voting sites.

The director said the rollout will be staggered, starting at the Lillington site—which uses the majority of ballot styles—and then moving to larger western-county sites to bring everyone on board over the next few days. "So, as soon as we can get Jennifer down to get everything set up for training, we plan on incorporating it at the early voting sites," the director said.

Board members asked logistical and staffing questions, including how many check-in stations would be used and how ballots will be printed and handed to voters. The director described the ballot-on-demand unit as a printer that will sit near the check-in and print voters’ ballots on demand once the voter is checked in, and said each site will have multiple check-in stations to maintain throughput.

On the budget, the director presented a packet with a summary page and a line-item budget reflecting usual hours and pay rates used in prior cycles, noting the packet’s dates reflected the primary. She said the office is budgeting only for the general-election cycle this fiscal year and proposed researching vendors to provide more robust election-worker training—citing products such as Integra and other SOE training software—as an option for online videos and supplementary materials. "So those are some, just a couple of vendors that we were going to look at," she said.

The director also recommended planning for voting-equipment replacement under a capital improvement plan, noting vendors typically recommend a 10-year lifecycle for voting equipment and that jurisdictions often budget replacements within a 10–20 year horizon. No formal vendor contract or budget approval for training was requested at the meeting; the director sought direction and suggestions from the board.

Next steps: staff will schedule vendor-led setup and training visits, confirm remaining printer deliveries, and return with any formal requests for training contracts or capital-plan budgeting as needed.