New machines and new procedures are in place to handle the expected heavy voter turnout in Cuyahoga County tomorrow. ideastream's Kymberli Hagelberg has a report on the preparations being made in Ohio's largest voting district.
County Board of Elections Director Jane Platten told board members Monday that a small army of volunteers and experts will be on duty at Cuyahoga's 564 voting locations.
Platten: "Our pollworkers, high school students, presiding judges, polling location coordinators and rovers are trained. We're at 100 percent capacity at all the locations and we have a good amount of standbys on alert."
The county will use the same paper ballots implemented for the March Primary. But unlike the primary, scanners will be placed at each precinct so voters can be assured their ballots are correct.
A staff of 16 technicians from scanner manufacturer ES&S will be working at the board as returns come in to handle any problems that might occur. The board spent 13 million to lease the machines and 1.6 million hire election night personnel.
So far, Platten says, about 30 percent of the county's 768,000 expected voters have cast their ballots early. More than 206,000 of those ballots have already been returned to the board and scanned. Of that number, almost 3,000 of those early ballots have been challenged for a variety of problems. The board has until 14 days after the election to contact voters to resolve problems on the questioned ballots.
Kymberli Hagelberg, 90.3