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Bexar County commissioners this week approved major voting equipment purchases—and all paid for by grants under the Help America Vote Act.
The act is designed to help cities and counties run more efficient elections.
Bexar County Elections Administrator Michele Carew helped win $4 million in grant money under the act to operate smoother elections here.
Commissioners approved spending more than $1.3 million of that "spend it or lose it" money based on her recommendations.
And 300 new voting carts are in the new equipment mix. Carew said those carts can be wheeled out to disabled voters who visit polling sites.
"This is an ADA accessible cart that would allow those voting from their vehicles, to not only have privacy, but to have the ability to move the machine from left to right, up and down," she told commissioners.
Also approved by commissioners were 350 new ballot printers and an automated mail-in ballot sorting machine.
That machine takes photos of the front and back of mail-in ballots as required by law. It can also sort ballots by style and detect if there is more than one ballot in an envelope. All of that is currently done by elections workers by hand, a process that is tedious, time-consuming and costly.
Carew said the automated sorter will save the county on labor costs. And the additional ballot printers, she said, will speed voters through polling sites.
All of the commissioners were on board with the purchases, except for Republican Precinct 3 Commissioner Grant Moody. He questioned Carew's planned new purchases, finding them redundant to existing equipment.
"I just think it's overkill and I just wish we could have talked through this plan in more detail before court," he told Carew, who has been in her job for about a year and a half now.
Carew invited Moody to visit the county election headquarters to inspect their operations, which he appeared to accept.
Around 1,500 USB drives were also purchased and are proprietary, so they can work with existing county election equipment. Carew said some of the existing USBs were prone to failure.
Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai directed Carew to improve county elections through the implementation of technology when she first took over the office.
