🎥 New election equipment debuts in Ellis County; paper ballots return

Ellis County voters are using new election equipment today with a return to paper ballots.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Voters in Hays were lined up and awaiting the opening of polling locations just before 7 a.m. Tuesday.

Balloting is underway statewide for city and school board elections.

Ellis County is using new voting equipment for the first time. It was first available to advance voters at the Ellis County Administrative Center.

In April, the Ellis County Commission approved the purchase from Election Systems & Software of Omaha, Neb.

Paper ballots for Hays voters living in Ward 4, Precinct 5

Voters are seeing the return of paper ballots, now marked with a standard black ink pen. Previously, the entire balloting process was done electronically using touchscreen machines.

Once a voter is identified at their polling location check-in, they get a paper ballot specific to their ward and precinct.

Voters then sit down at a table with privacy sleeves and mark their ballot by completely filling in ovals with the provided pen.

Once people are finished voting, they feed their ballot into a scanner which tabulates each ballot and then drops it into secure bins.

Tom McClelland, poll worker at the Hays Recreation Center, explains the new ballot scanner/tabulator.

“This machine will read the ballot any of the four ways you can put it in there. It’ll go and it’ll count them,” explained Tom McClelland, a poll worker at the Hays Recreation Center. “From there, it drops into a basket on the bottom, under lock and key. If there’s ever any problem, with the votes like there was previously, they can always go back and open these boxes and count every one of them by hand.”

HRC poll worker Pat Lang said this morning she had no complaints from voters about the equipment change.

“It’s going fast here and it should be faster tonight when the polls close,” Lang said.

Each polling location has a designated runner who will take the printed ballot scanner information to the county administrative center in Hays just after 7 p.m. to be compiled. According to Lang, each polling location previously packed up the equipment and brought it and the ballots to the center at the same time. “It’s gonna be faster results,” she predicted.

A Hays voter feeds her completed ballot into the ballot scanner/tabulator which produces a paper tally that will be transported to the Ellis Co. Administrative Center. The actual ballots are dropped into locked bins.

The new machines allow Ellis County to comply with Kansas law requiring every county to complete an election audit.

In Ellis County there are four positions open on each of the school boards in Hays, Ellis and Victoria. Three seats are open on both the Hays city commission and Ellis city council as well as Ellis mayor and treasurer. All Kansans are voting on a constitutional amendment question regarding the census.

Five candidates are running for the three Hays city commission seats – Michael Berges, Ron Mellick, Mason Ruder, Ryan Rymer, and Henry Schwaller IV. The top two vote-getters will each serve a four-year term while the third highest vote-getter will serve two years.

There are nine people running for the four open positions on Hays USD 489 – Paul Adams, Cole Engel, Alex Herman, Lori Ann Hertel, Jessica Ann Berg Moffitt, Craig Pallister, Allen Park, Luke Oborny, and Tammy Wellbrock.

Polls close at 7 p.m.

Check Hays Post and Eagle Radio for election results and candidate reactions.