Michelle Mrozkowski with Printelect gives a demonstration earlier this month of voting equipment at the Randolph County Board of Elections. (Jann Ortiz / For Randolph Record)
ASHEBORO — A demonstration of new voting equipment was a step toward possible upgrades for Randolph County machines.
Melissa Kirstner, elections director of the Randolph County Board of Elections, said the goal is to provide voting results in a faster manner.
“The reason we did (the demonstration) is we have equipment with some of it that is 10 years old,” Kirstner said. “Our board is talking about whether we want to update equipment or software.”
This month’s presentation of newly certified voting equipment at the county’s board of elections office was given by Michelle Mrozkowski of Printelect.
Kirstner said much of the county’s election equipment has probably used up about two-thirds of its lifespan. There’s a process involving obtaining new equipment and one of those is holding a public demonstration. If new equipment is purchased, there would be simulated elections conducted as part of that process.
With the North Carolina legislature seeking ways to obtain election results faster, Kirstner said Randolph County wants to be ready to keep up the pace.
“It’s a first step in the process,” Kirstner said. “There’s not any definite steps that the board has taken.”
Randolph County has nearly 100,000 registered voters. Because of certain regulations regarding tabulating votes from early voters and absentee voters, Randolph County didn’t complete tallying its votes from last November’s Election Day until about 1 a.m. the next day, Kirstner said.
“The faster turnaround we can have on Election Night makes a difference,” Kirstner said. “I know it’s just one night, but people are jumping at the bit to get those results.”
There are various avenues the county could take in terms of election equipment. An update in software would boost the speed and wouldn’t be as costly as fully replacing election machines.
“It would give us a little more speed,” Kirstner said.
However, new equipment would be accompanied by a newer version of software.
Either way, Randolph County will continue to use hand-marked paper ballots fed into DS200 precinct-based ballot scanners and vote tabulators, according to information from the county’s Board of Elections.
This summer, there’s an expected turnover on the county’s five-member elections board. Some decisions about equipment might come once any new board members take an oath in late July, Kirstner said.
There were less than a dozen members of the public on hand for the equipment demonstration May 15.
Mrozkowski is a former worker for the North Carolina State Board of Elections and private companies supporting elections. Printelect is a New Bern-based company, which describes itself as a national elections solutions provider.
