Agenda - Council - 01/25/1983 - Laserfiche WebLink

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,I I I i I i I I I I I I I '1 I I I I Elections Page Two FACTS: In 1978, the Anoka County Auditor sold the punch card system to the smaller cities on the premise that "productivity would be increased greatly with the utilization of the electronic vote counting system". The majority of cities in Anoka County had more ballots counted in the 1980 Presidential Election. Those were counted in one-half the time it took to count in the 1982 elections. The majority of the judges were the same ones familiar with the procedures and system. Cities are accountable to elected officials for the conduct of the elections. Chief judges have indicated they are not willing to serve. again if there is an unduly time wait to get ballots counted. The retainment of key election judges is a crucial and critical part of any election and cities cannot afford to lose the well trained judges. Several reasons were given for the delay in the Data Processing Room: (a) that the computer was malfunctioning; (b) that only one computer was operating; (c) that the delay was due to elecbion judge errors, when in fact, to our knowledge, none of the above were the factors in contributing to the delay of more than four hours longer to count votes in Anoka County during the 1982 Primary and General Elect'ions. Due to the unexplained delays, it can lead elected officials and the general public to have suspicions that "ballot tampering" is occurring in the Counting Center. Credibility is lost, public trust disappears, and there is suspect that the system is not working properly. CONCLUSION: Anoka County Clerks, Administrators, and Managers are satisfied with the electronic vote counting system; it is simple and easy to operate, requires little storage area; is fairly inexpensive-(if counting is done jointly with all other cities); and should be fairly fast in reporting vote totals if managed more effectively.