Jacksonville FL — With early voting starting Saturday morning for the special election to fill the vacant Jacksonville City Council seat once held by the late Tommy Hazouri, the Duval County Supervisor of Elections Office is getting set to debut a new piece of technology designed to help people with disabilities vote independently. The elections office says a new system called ExpressVote will replace the old system known as AutoMARK at every early voting location and precinct on election day. Chief Elections Officer Robert Phillips says this new technology has been around for years in Florida and Duval County is the last large county to roll it out.
“It is a touch screen interface that still prints out your votes on a paper ballot”. Phillips says.
He says this new system will help people with disabilities vote independently without the help of a poll worker or someone else. If you are not comfortable using this new system, you will still be able to vote the old-fashioned way. Phillips says elections officials are encouraging you to use them since they believe there are more applications for the system than just assisting people with disabilities.
“We could see it one day actually replacing the traditional ballot on-demand system that we see in early voting”. Phillips says.
He says this new system has required about a million-dollar investment, but it’s replacing a million-dollar investment in the AutoMARK system that was made back in 2006. Phillips describes the old system as typically the biggest point of failure on election day.
“They were old equipment, and they would break down quite frequently”. Phillips says.
Phillips says the feedback from other counties that have already used ExpressVote has been positive and the poll workers that have been training on the new system have also had good things to say about it.
Early voting for the special election gets underway Saturday morning at the following locations and runs through February 20th:
- SUPERVISOR OF ELECTIONS MAIN OFFICE, 105 E. Monroe Street
- ARGYLE BRANCH LIBRARY, 7973 Old Middleburg Road S.
- OCEANWAY COMMUNITY CENTER, 12215 Sago Avenue West
- BEACHES BRANCH LIBRARY, 600 3rd Street
- PABLO CREEK REGIONAL LIBRARY, 13295 Beach Boulevard
- BRADHAM & BROOKS BRANCH LIBRARY, 1755 Edgewood Avenue West
- REGENCY SQUARE BRANCH LIBRARY, 9900 Regency Square Boulevard
- HIGHLANDS REGIONAL LIBRARY, 1826 Dunn Avenue
- SOUTH MANDARIN BRANCH LIBRARY, 12125 San Jose Boulevard
- LEGENDS COMMUNITY CENTER, 5130 Soutel Drive
- SOUTHEAST REGIONAL LIBRARY, 10599 Deerwood Park Boulevard
- MANDARIN BRANCH LIBRARY, 3330 Kori Road
- WEBB WESCONNETT REGIONAL LIBRARY, 6887 103rd Street
- MURRAY HILL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 4101 College St
- WEST BRANCH LIBRARY, 1425 Chaffee Road South
Election day is February 22nd.