Collin County will spend roughly $2.3 million on implementing the new hand-marked Ballot on Demand system for the November election, following a unanimous decision to fund the new voting system at a June 23 Commissioners Court meeting.

By the numbers

The county court approved various contracts for the following items to facilitate the transition to hand-marked ballots, per county documents.The county will also purchase ballot stock, the paper that contains the ballot. Collin County Elections Administrator Kaleb Breaux said the county is required to buy new ballot stock each election, and the amount can change from election-to-election, so the county doesn't currently have an estimate on the ballot stock's cost.

Some background

County Judge Chris Hill directed county staff to develop an implementation plan at a June 9 court meeting.


County Administrator Yoon Kim said prior conversations in May with the Texas Secretary of State’s Elections office also prompted the county to acquire the equipment for hand-marked ballots to comply with President Trump’s March 25 Executive Order, which states, "voting systems should not use a ballot in which a vote is contained within a barcode or quick-response code in the vote counting process except where necessary to accommodate individuals with disabilities."

“Since BMDs, the ballot marking devices, read barcodes, based on the executive order and discussions with the Secretary of State and guidance, we were directed to work on procuring the Ballot on Demand equipment,” Kim said.

Also of note

Breaux said the county will continue to use barcodes and barcode scanners to streamline the voter check-in process by producing a generic precinct identifier that voters will sign. The system will allow poll workers to check in voters and print their ballots more efficiently, Breaux said. Barcodes and barcode scanners will not be used to tabulate or record ballots, or generate unique voter identifications, Breaux said.
Looking ahead


Breaux said he expects the equipment to arrive in mid-September, and the elections department will retrain poll workers on the new system over the summer.

The new system will have voters mark their ballots in pen, and feed their ballot into an optical scanner, as opposed to using electronic Ballot Marking Devices, or BMDs, where voters make selections on a touch screen to produce a bar code. Breaux noted voters will use pens and not pencils, so their ballot markings cannot be erased.

The county will continue to employ roughly 300 touch screen BMDs to maintain ADA and Help America Vote Act compliance, Breaux said at a June 9 meeting.