WAUSAU, Wis. (WSAU) — Modern technology has made election night much more efficient in Marathon County. They are using a new system that eliminates transporting heavy, old ballot counting machines from polling places to clerk’s offices.
Wausau City Clerk Toni Rayala says she no longer needs a large staff and security people in the office on election night, because this system is much easier. “We actually had to have the brains of the operation, the ballot scanners themselves, brought over to city hall at the end of every election, and they were about forty pounds apiece plus the case and everything, and they were very heavy. With the new system now, all of the results can be modemed from the individual system.”
Now, securing election data is as easy as locking up the ballots and a small USB computer storage device. “The product that is brought over to our office is just simply like a small flash drive. This is all of the data from the election site. This is what will be locked in my office, secured, and everything else that the poll workers will be bringing over from the polling place.”
Assistant County Clerk Kathy Kainz says all of the data from the individual polling places now goes directly to the Marathon County Clerk’s office by cellular modem. “The product that is brought over to our office is just simply like a small flash drive. This is all of the data from the election site. This is what will be locked in my office, secured, and everything else that the poll workers will be bringing over from the polling place.”
The machinery at the county rapidly tallies everything. Kainz says it’s a couple of buttons and results are ready. “Well, we have a program that generates reports, and we will upload those preliminary reports to the Internet, and then the final results will be posted after our canvas, next week, Tuesday.”
Rayala says the paper ballots still come back to clerks in time for canvassing, but this system adds everything up much faster and with a lot less people.
This new system is fast. Marathon County had final results for 102 out of 106 precincts in less than forty minutes after the polls closed Tuesday. It also integrates well with the new statewide system that was just launched this year.
