County buys new election machines

Vernon County has ordered new election equipment.

Current equipment was purchased with a grant through the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

“I insisted and the [county] commissioners agreed that our new equipment will have paper ballots and none of our machines will be online,” said Vernon County Clerk Mike Buehler.

Those with disabilities will use a touch screen unit which is not online but produces a paper ballot which is counted by manually feeding it into the precinct counter (vote tabulation machine).

Since Vernon County presently has 16 polling places, on order are 16 new precinct counters for the paper ballots along with 16 new touch screen machines which comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. In addition, the county is obtaining one laptop with the software for tabulating the results along with warranties, licenses and ballot printing.

“We plan on having everything up and ready to go for the August Primary Election,” said Vernon County Clerk Mike Buehler.

“And that includes training our volunteer poll-workers,” he said with a laugh.

Buehler said his laugh and broad smile were because compared to the current equipment, the new machines, including for those with disabilities are very simple and quite easy to certify and operate.

“Right now it takes about 2.5 hours of operations just to certify one of our present touch screen machines but with the new ones, we should be able to certify all of them in half a day,” said Buehler.

Last fall, on separate days, well in advance of this year’s request for actual bids, three companies had the opportunity to appear before the commission, demonstrate their equipment, explain the voting and tabulating process, review costs and answer questions.

The three included Adkins Election Systems (based in Clinton, Missouri), Election Systems d Software (based in Omaha, Nebraska but has an office/service center in Springfield, Missouri), and the current supplier of election equipment and services to Vernon County, Elkins-Swyers Company, based in Springfield, Missouri.

“When I was elected, we still had an election computer running on DOS [Disc Operating System] and the results came out on a dot matrix printer,” said Buehler. “We were able to upgrade to Windows XP [released in 2001] but they’ve announced they’re no longer supporting that operating system so we have to change.”

At last year’s demonstrations, three things were made clear. First, the equipment and processes of each company were going to be a significant improvement compared to what the county utilizes at present.

Second, of the three companies, ES&S was clearly superior. Everyone present agreed their equipment was easiest to use and stood out because, unlike the others, they do not utilize third party vendors but produce all of their own hardware and software and still support every previous generation they have produced.

Said Buehler, “At the demonstration, one of the ES&S reps told about a place in Montana which, over 30 years ago, bought one of their earliest generations of equipment. And for whatever reason, that election authority still uses that equipment but because they always purchased a maintenance agreement, ES&S still maintains it.”

While the costs quoted at the demonstrations were not actual bids, they did reveal a potential problem. ES&S was not, as Missouri statutes require, “the lowest and best bidder.” While it could be argued they were the “best,” by far, they had the highest initial cost.

After the demonstrations were complete, Buehler said he would use the intervening months before the request for bids to see if prices could be lowered.

At the end of January, in announcing the county’s budget approved for 2018, mention was made of funds being set aside for the purchase of new election equipment.

Buehler sent out a request for proposals (bids) which were to be opened by the commission, in their office, on March 6 at 10 a.m.

The county clerk informed the commission that based on conversations he had had with each vendor, he guessed ES&S would not be the lowest bidder but would be competitive with all three being fairly close to one another.

“And then came March 6 and when Joe [Hardin] read the bids, Elkins was the cheapest by far,” said Buehler. “They were $37,000 cheaper than ES&S. The commissioners were surprised but I was in shock.”

So how is it that on Wednesday, April 11, Hardin announced, “We did decide today to purchase new election equipment through Election Systems and Software. The initial cost is $113,510”?

By his repeated statements, Buehler made it quite clear he views Elkins as a fine company and has truly valued the service and support the county has received from them over the years.

“When I looked at all the costs – initial cost for equipment, maintenance agreement, software programming and per ballot costs – and did this over 15 years, which is the expected life of the equipment, then ES&S was ‘the lowest and best bidder,’” said Buehler.

According to numbers provided by the county clerk, the higher initial cost of ES&S’ equipment equalized out around year six with the total estimated costs through 2031 for Adkins being $390,016, for Elkins it is $323,747.50 while ES&S is $302,090.

The primary reason for the change in costs over time is due to ES&S’ significantly lower per ballot printing charges.

Buehler said in an odd numbered year, his office typically has about 8,000 ballots printed. In an even-numbered non-presidential election year, that jumps to 24,000 while in an even numbered presidential election year, Vernon County typically needs about 28,000 ballots.

“We have elections where between townships, ambulance and water districts, schools, the county, circuit, state and federal offices, I’ll need to order 65 different styles of ballots,” said Buehler.

Some precincts have a wide number of ballot styles because the people are scattered and cross various district boundaries. The notebooks used at each precinct inform the poll workers of the appropriate ballot style for each voter.

In addition, the yearly maintenance agreement offered by ES&S was lower by $2,000 per year compared to one company and $4,000 less compared to the other. Over time, these savings add up. Northern district commissioner, Cindy Thompson, highlighted an important factor in her decision making, which was a study recently performed by another county in southwest Missouri. Voters with disabilities tested the voting systems of the three previously named firms. The overwhelming preference was for the equipment by ES&S.

“While all the systems we looked at are certified ADA compliant, I think it’s important to get one the users find is best,” said Thompson. “And that’s what we’re buying.”

Referencing the touch screen machines’ ease of use Buehler said, “I think some folks will enjoy using these machines. And if I’m right, eventually, we may use them in every election.”

In a few elections, there have been instances where a precinct has run out of ballots. Having the touch screen machines available would enable voting to continue since the machine’s programming would enable voting and printing the proper paper ballot.