Montgomery County Board Of Elections utilized 28 Ballot Marker Devices for the Primary and General elections. The introduction of the BMD's to the general public has been a tremendous opportunity for them to know and get familiarized with the new voting machines. The voting machine coordinators attended a series of training sessions sponsored by New York State Board Of Elections and Sequoia.
We have provided usable and useful pertinent information in regards to the BMD's and trained our Poll Workers on the utilization of the Ballot Marker Devices in the past training sessions and will continue to provide training for the Poll Workers that are on board with us as well as newcomers.
The Poll Workers welcomed the notion of having new voting machines at different Poll site locations since the Lever voting machines are pretty much outmoded in the state of New York. As, we know the Ballot Marker Devices can accommodate disabled voters and non-disabled voters. For the past Primary election there were 7 voters and they casted their ballots utilizing the BMD's. The General election we had an increase. The total number of voters that casted their ballots on the BMD's were 28.
The Montgomery County electorate feel confident using the BMD machines. In the year 2009, the Ballot Marker Devices will have endured their complete certification process of Plan B and we will participate in a Pilot Program.
The Polling Places selected for the Pilot Program will be in the Mohawk Town Office Building and Glen Town Office Building. The Ballot Marker Devices are kept safe and secure at our Board Of Elections storage facility. The voting machine coordinators usually conduct Diagnostics testing to each BMD machine and make sure the BMD's are functional/operational.
Montgomery County will implement the BMD Pilot Program utilizing optical scan voting systems for the fall 2009 state and local elections; and to extend the remedial timeline to provide for full HAVA-compliant voting systems implementation through out the State of New York in time for the Fall 2010 federal primary and general elections. The New York State Board Of Elections has concluded that there is a great deal of value that be gained from the experience of a secure and controlled pilot program in consultation with the counties board of elections.
The dissemination of the Pilot Program means a limited roll out of the new Ballot Marker Devices (BMD's). Pilot Programs are very important with our software driven systems we have and New York state as well as other states are moving in the direction of voting technology.
Montgomery County Board Of Elections
Old Courthouse, P.O. Box 1500
Fonda, New York 12068-1500
This page was last updated July 6, 2009.
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