The Grimes County Elections Office is getting an upgrade to some of their internal equipment.
Elections Administrator Lucy Ybarra presented an update to their contract with Vista Solutions for them to get all their voter registration records to paperless form, which they already do, but this would take things a little beyond that.
“We want to take the service, maintain the same paperless filing system we are doing, but take it one step further, and have them partner with the state. Basically, instead of us having to manually index, it would auto-index out systems, make it a little easier while doing data entry. Also, it will keep our services, and files, upgraded and current,” said Ybarra.
She says state law requires them to, in addition to active registered voters, they must maintain canceled or suspended voters, and have to be stored separately.
And for them, currently, that means the pain staking process of work by hand.
“this system meets the state requirement, and would enroll those canceled voters on a regular bases. Versus what we have to do right now, which is manually go in, and pick and chose them,” said Ybarra. “Sometimes during election time, mistakes can be made. So, this would take it, and make it more automated.”
The court approved the contract upgrade with Vista Solutions of the election administrators office.
She said contractual costs with Vista would increase from $5,000 a year to about $7,000 a year, but they have it covered through various budget accounts.