Cole Co. discusses buying new voting equipment ahead of election season

With election season just a few months away, voting equipment was a concern brought up in the Cole County Commission meeting Thursday.

The county discussed buying new voting booths when the scheduled maintenance of the current ones would prove too slow.

After each election, the memory packs inside each booth must be sent out for programming and then sent back for testing.

It’s a lengthy process that must be completed before the next election.

There were some staffing concerns with the maintenance facility that would have made the county have to spend thousands of dollars for new equipment.

“We would have had to buy memory packs which was very expensive and they’re not hardly made. These machines are probably ten years old. So, I don’t even know if there are new memory packs out there. They’d probably have to be manufactured. And so, we won’t have to worry about that anymore now,” said Steve Korsmeyer, Cole County Clerk.

ABC 17 News is told the staffing problem has been fixed, and the maintenance schedule is back on track.