Wausau City Hall. MWC file photo.
WAUSAU, WI (WSAU) — Voters in Wausau will be using Badger Books exclusively beginning with the Spring 2024 election and any primaries that may go with it.
The City Council approved purchasing ten additional units at the cost of $2,200 per unit on Tuesday. Clerk Kaitlyn Bernarde says that’s enough to outfit all the polling places in the city after they were well received by voters during some test runs in the last two elections.
“They create a faster process for voters from when they walk in the door to when they walk out,” said Bernarde. “They check in voters, so you say your name and address, show your photo ID, then they’ll scan the barcode on your ID so they can find you right away. They can also tell you if you’re supposed to be at a different polling site.”
The books also help speed up the post-election processes such as finalizing vote totals and reconciling the poll books. But the machines aren’t made to cut humans out of the election process completely. “There are points in the system that requires the worker to view a photo ID and makes sure it is not expired. And all of our Chief Election Inspectors are still required to do the reconciliation at the end of the night.”
Each polling site will still have a paper poll book on election day in case the books do go down.
The books made their Wausau debut in the Spring 2022 election when they were used at the city’s central count site for absentee ballots. After that, they were utilized at two polling sites for the August 2023 primary (Armory and Sylvan Hill). They were used at the Pilgrim Lutheran Church polling site for this year’s Spring Election.
The city has created an instructional video on how to use the Badger Books. Bernarde adds that all election workers have been trained on the machines to help those who may be technology resistant or don’t feel they can operate the machines confidently.
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