Vrakas to seek budget to study election equipment needs
Waukesha - Waukesha County Executive Dan Vrakas will seek $70,000 in next year's capital budget to prepare the way for new election equipment countywide.
Shawn Lundie, Vrakas' chief of staff, said Vrakas included the new proposal after talking to Republican nominee for county clerk, Kathleen Novack, who concurred with its need. Democrat Jessie Read, her opponent in the November general election, was not similarly contacted, however.
The funds, if approved by the County Board, would pay a consultant to establish system requirements, business processes and a needs analysis for new election hardware and software.
The proposal will be part of the 2013-'17 capital plan Vrakas intends to submit to the County Board on Friday.
"Waukesha County is a rapidly growing county and in recent years the number of reporting units in the county has increased," Vrakas said. "This, coupled with the collecting, tallying and reporting vote totals, has made the process cumbersome. The goal is to automate and streamline the system as much as possible to prevent human error."
Election reporting errors and delays have resulted in recent years in part because of vote recording equipment that can no longer automatically transmit results to the county clerk's reporting software by modem. When retiring County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus updated outdated election equipment early this year, the modem system used on previous equipment no longer worked, and federal elections officials have not yet certified comparable equipment for the newer system.
As a result, in recent elections, municipal clerks have manually keyed-in information to an online data system provided by the Government Accountability Board.
New election equipment is intended to automate the process, increasing efficiency, accuracy and timeliness of vote reporting.
Lundie said it is yet to be determined whether the countywide election equipment that ultimately will be recommended would be paid for by the county or with contributions from local municipalities.
The first year of the capital plan will be included in Vrakas' proposed 2013 county budget, to be submitted to the County Board for review in late September and adoption in November.