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Board members debate whether postage payment affects ballot tracking and integrity
Summary
Board members split on whether county-paid return postage is necessary for tracking and ballot security; clerk said tracking depends on vendor-provided barcodes, not the presence of a stamp.
Board members spent substantial time debating whether paying return postage is linked to end-to-end tracking and election integrity.
A board member raised the concern that without county-paid return postage the office would lose delivery confirmation and timely intelligence about ballots in transit. In response, Clerk Karen explained the technical basis for tracking: "It's not the stamp itself that's being tracked. It's the barcode on the envelope." She described earlier problems when a previous vendor failed to supply barcodes consistently and the extra steps staff took to create address images and tracking records.
Opponents said that postage itself does not improve the integrity of a ballot and argued voters should bear a small cost rather than the county. One member summarized that requiring a stamp is a minor barrier but not equivalent to the security mechanisms used to verify ballots.
The exchange left a substantive disagreement in the record about the operational relationship between postage, vendor services, and USPS tracking; the board resolved the policy question by voting to pay postage for the upcoming election but asked staff to prepare a formal resolution for later consideration.
