Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Ballot Security topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Bexar County outlines new chain-of-custody steps and $4M in HAVA-funded equipment purchases
Summary
Elections Administrator Michelle Carew described chain-of-custody improvements, camera upgrades and a roughly $4,000,000 HAVA grant purchase program that included new voting machines, a mail-ballot sorter and curbside carts; ES&S was scheduled to inspect equipment the following week.
Elections Administrator Michelle Carew told the commission the county has invested HAVA grant funds and is implementing new procedures to strengthen ballot security and speed processing.
Carew said the county spent a little over $3,000,000 to buy additional equipment and that the total HAVA-funded purchases amounted to about $4,000,000. The purchases include additional voting machines and poll pads, a mail-ballot sorter that images front/back of returned ballots and measures envelope weight, and medically graded curbside carts designed to simplify curbside voting for voters with disabilities. "With that, we did purchase additional voting equipment," she said, and added that ES&S technicians were scheduled to be on site for two weeks to examine equipment problems and ensure devices are ADA accessible.
On chain-of-custody, Carew described several operational changes: matching outer clothing for staff who transfer ballots from vehicles to the warehouse to make handlers more identifiable; additional cameras along the route from drop-off to storage and tabulation rooms; numbered seals that are now tracked by county technicians (judges no longer break seals); and new chain-of-custody forms that allow judges to retain a copy of paperwork when they deliver ballots. "So we've really pulled in the reins on that," she said.
Carew also said the county will add a ballot-by-mail sorter and other digital tools so early-voting ballot-board work can return to more automated processing similar to the prior VOTEC environment.
