Berks County election officials delay plan to buy electronic poll books
May 13—Berks County elections official are putting plans to purchase electronic poll books on hold for now.
Commissioner Kevin Barnhardt, chairman of the elections board, suggested Thursday during a meeting that the county delay buying the devices until next year when adequate storage space for them can be secured.
"We have no place to store these right now," he said.
The commissioners voted in January to approve a $1.1 million contract with Election Systems & Software to buy 440 electronic poll books. The board had planned to pilot the books at voting locations this fall.
Electronic poll books, which are updated in real time on a closed system, resemble a tablet computer. They will contain the entire county voter registration database and will replace the paper rosters of registered voters at each precinct on election day.
Barnhardt said he believes the county should be able to find a suitable location to store the devices sometime early next year and hopes to buy the poll books in time to use them in the spring 2022 primary election.
"We are earnest in purchasing these books, but this year is going to be very challenging to actually buy them and have no place to put them," he said.
The board has been exploring options on how to best protect its investment in new voting machines and poll books. They have said they believe the best option is for the county to construct a climate-controlled warehouse on its existing campus in Bern Township.
The voting machines are currently stored in a warehouse at the Berks County Agricultural Center along County Welfare Road. Barnhardt said the location is not big enough to hold training classes and exposes the machines to temperatures that could damage the electronic circuits.
Barnhardt and county elections director Ronald Rutkowski took a trip last month to tour a warehouse in Delaware considered an optimum storage facility for voting systems. Following that visit, they said it became clear to them that the county would need more storage space than originally thought.
"We thought we could just put them on a rack and not have to think about them," Barnhardt said. "It turns out that they have to be out quite often for recharging, for programming, for verification. That was not something that we had considered before this tour."
Fellow Commissioners Christian Leinbach and Michael Rivera said they support putting the purchase on hold. And they agreed a permanent solution is needed to ensure the voting system is safe and secure.
