Portage County's new voting equipment leads Wisconsin in election security and access. Here's how it works.

PLOVER − Portage County has made an almost $1 million investment in election security and accessibility, and voters will get to use the new equipment for the first time during the Feb. 20 primary election.

Voters in almost all districts in Portage County will cast their votes using an electronic universal voting machine called ExpressVote. These machines are manufactured by Elections Systems & Software LLC, a Nebraska-based company that also manufactures the electronic tabulators that have been used in the county for over a decade, according to Portage County Clerk Maria Davis.

Davis said Portage County is now leading the state in utilizing this technology for almost all of its voters and other county clerks are reaching out to hear about its impact.

Along with the ExpressVote machines, new electronic poll books − called Badger Books − will replace paper poll books at some voting locations and some sites will get their first electronic tabulator.

Here’s what Portage County voters need to know about the new ExpressVote machines.

What is an ExpressVote machine?

The machine is a large touch screen and a thermal printer. It has numerous accessibility features that enable almost everyone to vote in privacy. These features include enlarged text, high-contrast mode, headphones for text-to-speech, an audio-tactile keypad and a port for a sip-and-puff device or a two-position rocker switch.

The machines also utilize a variety of both hardware and software security measures, from encrypted USBs to tamper-evident seals, which prevent data from being manipulated or stolen.

How do you vote with the new machines?

A voter checks into the polling location, showing their ID, and receives a ballot with a barcode corresponding to their address from a poll worker. The new ballots are about half the size of previous ballot designs and are largely blank to start with. The voter takes their nearly blank ballot to the machine and inserts it with the angled corner on the top right.

The machine presents the ballot’s questions on a series of screens, which advance as the voter provides their input either via the touch screen or another input device.

Once finished making choices, the machine prints the selections onto the ballot and returns it to the voter. The ballot may be reviewed either by looking at the printed selections or inserting it again into the machine to have its encrypted contents displayed.

A voter then takes their completed ballot to the electronic tabulator and inserts it to complete their vote with electronic assistance and an auditable paper trail.

How much did the new voting equipment cost?

In December 2022, the Portage County Board approved $879,115 for an electronic universal voting system to be allocated out of local recovery funds made available by the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act.

This is part of the more than $10 million the county has allocated so far of the federal relief funds.

The new machines will save the county money and time

Previously, Davis would estimate the number of ballots each polling location would need based on previous year’s turnout numbers. The specially-printed paper ballots are expensive, making over-estimations costly. However, an underestimation could send a county employee on a long drive to Appleton to pick up more ballots from the printer and then get them back to the polling location, an even costlier outcome.

Since the new ballots are smaller and can have their contents printed onto them on-site, Davis predicts thousands of dollars in savings per election due to unused ballots not having to be created and destroyed and staff time and energy in processing the variety of ballots between districts.

The new ballots’ uniform design allows the same supply to be used between elections and districts, greatly simplifying the procurement process.

The ExpressVote machines should prevent overvoting

One point to watch moving forward is the impact the machine has on the problem of overvoting.

Overvoting is when a voter selects more choices than a question asks them to provide, leading to their vote not being counted. Overvoting is more common in primaries, according to Davis, as voters may only choose candidates from one party through the entire ballot. Despite directions on the ballot, people often choose candidates in more than one party and have all their votes in the partisan races thrown out in that election.

ExpressVote shows an instructional message and prevents progress if too many selections are made.

Since Portage County is the first in Wisconsin to utilize this technology for most of its voters, it will provide a meaningful data point on efforts to reduce ballots spoiled by overvoting.

Why don't all polling locations in Portage County have the new equipment?

When this purchase was being planned in 2022, three municipalities opted out of getting more than the one ExpressVote machine they got for voters with accessibility needs, namely the town of Buena Vista, the village of Almond and the town of Almond.

However, Davis said these municipalities have reached out to work toward adopting the machines for all their voters in future elections.

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Erik Pfantz covers local government and education in central Wisconsin for USA-TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin and values his background as a rural Wisconsinite. Reach him at epfantz@gannett.com or connect with him on X (formerly Twitter) @ErikPfantz.

This article originally appeared on Stevens Point Journal: Portage County voting equipment leads Wisconsin in election security