15-05-2025
Local board of elections helped other counties with paper pollbooks
In the lead up to the May 6 special election, many Ohio counties switched back to paper pollbooks, at least temporarily.
A number of those counties reached out to the Ashtabula County Board of Elections, which was one of three county boards of elections in Ohio that still use paper pollbooks, along with Sandusky and Noble counties.
Board of Elections Deputy Director Charlie Frye said the Ohio Secretary of State's Office told the roughly 55 counties relying on KNOWiNK electronic pollbooks to go back to paper after Perry County discovered issues with them.
The KNOWiNK-reliant counties reached out to the Ashtabula County Board of Elections, who 'lend best practice,' Frye said.
'We didn't really micromanage, because every county board of elections is different,' he said.
The counties told to switch to paper pollbooks relied on the Ashtabula County Board of Elections' training videos to learn about paper pollbooks and train poll workers, Frye said.
Frye does not expect most of the counties to stick with paper pollbooks, he said.
'Its hard to say,' he said.
Frye said the Ashtabula County Board of Elections was one of the first counties in the state to adopt electronic pollbooks.
'Our experience with it wasn't really a great experience,' he said.
The board decided to transition back to paper after having issues with electronic pollbooks, such as bad updates that caused screens to freeze or go black, he said.
'We were just not happy,' he said.
During the 2020 election, the county board of elections' electronic pollbooks had an issue, where 44 voters were not logged in them.
'That was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back for us,' Frye said.
The board of elections switched back to paper pollbooks in 2021, he said.
'It just made more sense to go back to paper,' Frye said.
The electronic pollbooks the board used were going to be out of date, and it would have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to update to a new system, Frye said.
The switch back to paper has worked out well for the board.
'We've been fine ever since,' Frye said.
Frye has noticed poll workers are more engaged with their work and the electoral process since the board of elections went back to paper pollbooks, he said.
