Waiting around for results until the wee hours of morning on the day after an election should be a thing of the past in Montgomery County.
Marjorie Roher, a spokesperson for the county’s Board of Elections, said Friday the use of a new paper ballot voting system should significantly reduce delays for local precincts reporting results of Tuesday’s primary election to the board.
“We’re anticipating no problems with having our results in by 11 p.m.,” Roher said. “Our goal is by 10 p.m.”
If that occurs, it would be a significant change from the 2014 general election, when Montgomery County was among the last in the state to report its results. The full preliminary election results weren’t posted to the state’s Board of Elections website until 2:30 a.m., more than two hours after Gov. Larry Hogan had declared victory.
Delays resulted because In that election, precinct judges were responsible for breaking down 10 to 20 touchscreen voting machines after the polls closed, Roher said. The results from each machine had to be checked and uploaded to the board by the judges, a process that she said was far lengthier than what the new system requires.
In Tuesday’s election, voters will cast their votes on paper ballots that they’ll then take to a scanner, where they will insert the ballot and then confirm the ballot is complete on a touchscreen. Roher said most precincts are equipped with one scanner, while some precincts that typically experience high voter turnout have two.
“With this new system there are just one or two machines that need to be shut down and then the totals from the machines are uploaded to the [Board of Elections’] website,” Roher said. “The scan is very quick, it takes virtually no time.”
She added that the board doesn’t expect long lines of voters waiting to insert their ballots at the scanners, unless many voters show up at the same time, which in Montgomery County tends to happen around 7 a.m.
“I do everything I can to encourage voters to not be at a polling place the first thing in the morning,” Roher said. “If you need to go first thing in the morning, you need to be prepared that there may be a line.”
