Agenda - Council - 04/10/1990 - Laserfiche WebLink

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City Administrator, Mayor and Council Arlene Stafford Voting Precinct Optical Scan Units March 22, 1990 An Elections Task Force Con~mittee was formed in 1987. For the election in the fall of 1989, Blaine City did an "experimental use" of the Optic Scanner for the counting of the ballots. They were pleased with the system. A meeting was held on 2-12-90 and several cities have expressed interest in this type of counting system. Another meeting was held on 2-23-90, at which time County Commissioner, Paul McCarron presented an overview of cost/concerns and this was going to be presented at the Anoka County Boardmeeting on 2-27-90. County Commissioner Haas-Steffen forwarded a letter.to City Administrator Hartley stating the county board did authorize a 15 cent per capita subsidey to be used for election judges providing the resulting pay is at least $9 per hour. They also auth- orized to lease a system compatible with the optical~scan system. (see letter) Another meeting was held 3-15-90 by UNISYS Corp. The cities were presented a demo on the Optical Scan units. With a purchase over 100 units, the cost of each L init would be $5124 each. Ramseywould need five (5) units. It should be noted that each precinct would need the same number of judges working at each precinct. Write- in votes and absentee votes would still have to be added at the end of the day to each of the totals. Chief judges from each of the precincts would still have to go to the county and deliver the ballots/totals and sign off on all necessary paperwork. Mileage would still be paid to the judges as well as salary by the city. The city would also be responsible for publishing notice of test run prior to the election and to hold the public test on each optic scanner. Previously this had been done at the counting center at the Anoka County Courthouse. The County has agreed to back the cities by providing the programing, ballots (except city election ballot) and the necessary support.. St. Francis City Council met 3-19-90, at which time they decided to draft a letter, signed by the Mayor, to the county board as %heir being totally opposed to the system for the 1990 election, due to the fact that no budgeting has been done for this and they had been told that no changes would take place until at least 1992. pvery two years I personally feel that for a unit that is used once and sometimes twice,(primary election) the cost is extremely high ~]d there is also the storage of these units. However, it does appear the majority of the cities in the county seem to want to go with the Optic Scan System, so therefore the county could not provide %wo separate type counting systems. The county is also willing to cc~pile a list of voting machines throughout the county and would advertize to sell and cities would receive some monies for their supplies. The county will be making arrangements with the cite~ either bypurchase or lease. AT~AC}~D FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.