Minutes - Council - 05/08/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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25) Consumption and Display (Set-up) Permit for the Party House, 9539 Highway #10 N.W. 26) Report on Make The Scene, Keep Ramsey Clean 1990 Spring Clean-Up. Motion carded. Voting Yes: Mayor Reimann, Councilmembers DeLuca, Pearson and Peterson. Voting No: None. Absent: Councilmember Cich. COUNCIL BUSINESS Case #1: Discuss Use Of Electronic Voting Equipment With Maureen Gaalaas, Anoka County Election Supervisor: Maureen Gaalaas stated that in 1987, a task force represented by County and city officials was formed for the purpose of examining the possibility of converting to optical scan voting technology. The conclusion of the task force at that time was that 1992 would be the optimum time for the County and cities to convert to optical scan voting equipment. Last year, a new optical scan voting equipment vendor, Unisys, appeared on the market; up until that time, there was only one vendor certified in the State of Minnesota. With the additional vendor on the market, the larger cities decided it would be appropriate to review optical scan voting equipment again and began holding meetings in September of 1989. As a result of those meetings, cities representing 100 Anoka County precincts entered into a joint powers agreement to advertise for bids and awarded a bid to Unisys for optical scan voting equipment in 1990. Maureen noted that the choice for voting equipment lies with each city and the County tries to support whatever voting equipment the majority of the cities wish to use. Maureen stated that there were several reasons for the larger cities wishing to accelerate the time table and acquire optical scan voting equipment for the 1990 elections: a) no desire to start with a new voting system in a presidential election year (1992); b) convinced that the technical support and programming for the punch card system and it's integrity were on the decline; c) Unisys was anxious to do business and offer a price break to the first unit willing to go with the Unisys system. Following the awarding of the bid to Unisys, the cities requested County involvement in the optical scan equipment through programming and support services. County Commissioner McCarron held meetings regarding the request and offered a resolution to the County Board which indicated that the County would support optical scan for 1990 if a majority of the County precincts would use it at that time. Because the County realized that certain cities would be unable to afford the equipment on an accelerated time table and because the County could not support both optical scan and punch card systems, the County Commissioners decided that the County would acquire additional units with the idea that cities or townships unable to purchase or lease optical scan equipment for the 1990 elections would try to work out individual negotiations with the County to make sure they could use the optical scan equipment in 1990. Maureen stated that Ramsey has been added to the list of cities for which the County will provide optical scan voting equipment on a pay-back or lease basis. Maureen again noted that it was the majority of the cities, not the County, that made the decision to accelerate the time table for acquiring optical scan voting equipment. The Council had questions regarding the Unisys system with respect to initial acquisition costs, maintenance costs, life expectancy, adaptability for special city referendums and other techical issues. City Council/May 8, 1990 Page 7 of 17