Fort Bend County nearly doubles its election day voting machines

Fort Bend is buying more Hart Intercivic eSlate machines for this November's election. The 205 used in early voting cannot be used election day leaving 470 available before the purchase.

Oldham said the county now has 675 digital eSlate voting machines - excluding machines specially outfitted to serve handicapped people - and his office estimated 440 more are needed.

Oldham also noted the county had been considering the purchase of e-scan devices, also made by Hart Intercivic of Austin, as a way of providing a paper ballot and, thus, a paper trail in the event the results of an election are challenged.

However, while Hart's e-scan devices have been certified by the federal government, the company has been unable to create software allowing those devices to process ballots more than one page long, County Judge Bob Hebert said after Tuesday's meeting.

Ok. I'll bite. How hard can it be to scan in two pages on both sides? [The old Nueces County scanners did both sides of page, so I am assuming that they mean two pages both sides.]

Here's how I'd do it. The scanner software needs to know which pages to expect for an entire ballot. An incomplete ballot can be stored in a secured holding spot until all of the pages can be scanned. If incomplete ballots are allowed, push a button to drop the pages of the partial ballot into the ballot box section. If incomplete ballots are not allowed, push a button to eject the partial ballot pages. Both buttons could be set to be 'judge only' operated. If jams occur in the holding area, they would occur after the ballot page had been read. The judge could clear the jam and get the pages into the proper receptacle.

Here's a work around: Require a scanner for each ballot page. This might work if the ballot is only 2 double sided ballots. Obviously, this workaround doubles the number of machines needed.