MISSOULA — An agreement approved on Tuesday will enable the Missoula County Elections Office to compose its own ballots ahead of an election and reduce the time-sensitive process by offering more control at the local level.
County officials say the move will save an estimated $10,000 a year.
Nathan Coyan, deputy administrator of the Elections Office, said the new $49,000 contract with Election Systems & Software will eliminate some of the challenges of the past.
Under the old system, election officials needed to enter ballot information into the ESS portal and wait for them to send back their proof. If a correction to the ballot was required, the process would play over again.
“We were basically beholden to their time schedule,” said Coyan. “Sometimes, that resulted in less-than-ideal time frames for us. We're also in competition with other counties in the state while we await these approvals and these rapid, multiple drafts we had to go through.”
While the new software has been available for several years and other counties have already moved to the new system, the Missoula County Elections Office didn't have the staffing needed to complete the task.
But that's no longer the case and the Elections Office will begin training under the new software this summer.
“This allows us to increase internal controls over our election process because of our familiarity with districts and candidates,” said Coyan. “We'll be able to internally design the layout of our ballot. We won't have to be sending the data that goes into the makeup of the ballot.”
That could shave several hours off the process, Coyan said. In the last election, the county sent out 17 different versions of a ballot based upon the district of a registered voter. In a federal election, it could involve “hundreds” of ballot variations, the county said.
“To program that, we have to send that information in and wait for a proof to come back,” said Coyan. “Now, we would be entering the information in and programming it. It will enable me to immediately see if there's a discrepancy or error. It will decrease our proof-reading times, and it will also increase our capacity for testing.”
Elections administrator Bradley Seaman said his office will also be able to set up the tabulator faster. In the end, he added, it streamlines the entire process.
“By us doing this, we're innovating in this tight sphere of election law and we're also helping other counties get their proofs faster,” he said.
