The hunt is on for the next generation of Arlington voting equipment. When voters will be able to use it, though, is an open-ended question.
The three members of the Arlington Electoral Board will start the procurement process by meeting with prospective vendors at the annual gathering of the Virginia Electoral Boards Association, to be held March 23-25 at The Homestead.
That gathering proves a convenient way for election officials to meet with those eager to sell the county voting equipment.
“They’re all there, we’re all there,” said Dominick Schirripa, who chairs the Arlington Electoral Board, at the body’s March 11 meeting.
“I’ve already been getting emails” from interested firms, added the body’s secretary, Kim Phillip.
Five firms are certified to provide voting equipment to Virginia localities. Input from the three Electoral Board members will help county elections staff determine which vendors to invite to Arlington for demonstrations of their offerings.
Those local meetings can last four to eight hours apiece, county elections director Gretchen Reiemeyer said.
Arlington last made a change in its voting equipment in 2015. Typically, hardware and software is replaced on a 10-year cycle.
While election officials anticipate selecting a vendor by the end of the year, the new equipment may not actually be purchased and go into use until new state certification requirements are in place, Reinemeyer said.
Otherwise, Arlington faces the prospect of spending major amounts of money on a system that might not be compatible with new regulations.
That is the same concern that has election officials in neighboring Falls Church, which is likely to postpone a switch to ranked-choice voting for City Council until it can purchase new equipment that meets future state standards.
Arlington in 1950 moved from the use of paper ballots to lever-operated voting equipment. Since then, there have been five succeeding systems purchased as technology has advanced and state requirements have evolved.
The voting system purchased in 2015 brought back the use of paper ballots, owing to a state mandate. The ballots are scanned into election equipment by voters.
Code of conduct approved for officers of election: Arlington residents serving as officers of election going forward will have to agree to the terms of a new code of comment.
Electoral Board members voted 3-0 on March 11 to accept the staff-written code with only minor alterations. It will go into effect with those working at the polls for the June 17 state-run primaries.
The 11 bullet points are grouped into four categories: Respect, Trustworthiness, Accuracy and Professionalism.
Writing down a code of conduct was not reflective of any major trends, “just a lot of one-off incidents,” said Alyssa Myers, Arlington’s deputy director of elections.
She said election-office staff had observed “no uptick, no huge pattern,” but wanted to have a code of conduct in place.
“We’re seeing other jurisdictions doing this as well,” said elections director Gretchen Reinemeyer. “We want to make sure we’re being objective [in addressing issues].”
The two Republicans and one Democrat on the Electoral Board had no qualms about approval.
“Everybody should act professionally,” said the body’s vice chair, Richard Samp.
Going forward, each election officer will receive a copy of the code of conduct and be required to acknowledge receipt.
Officers of elections are paid a stipend of $200 to $300 per day worked, depending on job responsibilities. The elections office has a pool of several thousand election officers to draw from in each election, several times more than needed even for presidential-election years.
