Tommy Washbush
One of three new machines sorts ballots, above.
Administering absentee ballots is one of the most time-consuming tasks for elections officials. But the city of Madison will be using new equipment for the November election that will expedite the process. The city has purchased three BlueCrest election administration machines: one sorts ballots, another folds them in half and the third inserts them in envelopes.
Madison typically hires an average of 30 temporary workers on a per-day basis to process absentee ballots during the general election, says Jim Verbick, Madison deputy clerk. With the machines’ help, Verbick expects the city will need no more than five employees to accomplish the same task.
The folder machine bends ballots in half to fit in the envelopes sent out to voters. From there, the inserter machine will put outgoing ballots directly into the envelopes alongside voting instructions and print return labels onto the envelope. City officials will still initial the ballots by hand before they’re put into the machines, Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl tells Isthmus.
Officials can also feed incoming mail-in ballots into the sorter machine, which checks the validity of voters’ signatures and addresses before separating any ballots with errors from the valid ballots, which it sorts into sections by ward. The machine goes through at least two rounds of sorting to reduce the chance of error, and officials still inspect each ballot, Verbick says. From there, officials will put the sorted ballots into envelopes sent to polling places for counting.
Together, the machines cost $1.41 million, Verbick says. They were purchased using a grant from the nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, a frequent conservative target after Meta magnate Mark Zuckerberg gave millions to the group to ease elections administration during the pandemic. The city purchased the machines before Wisconsin voters approved an April constitutional amendment that prohibits the use of third-party funds for election administration. As such, they’re still legal.
Officials say the three machines will increase Madison’s election efficiency. “We’re glad to have had this opportunity to be able to afford, purchase and acquire machines like this to make us more efficient and help our voters in the long run,” Verbick says.
