Adams County Board approves new election equipment purchase

QUINCY (WGEM) - -- Adams County will get new election equipment after the Adams County board voted Tuesday night to approve the purchase.

Finance Committee Chairman Bret Austin said the county will use COVID-19 relief funding to replace outdated voting machines with optical scan tabulators.

He said the county already has about 10, which have been used in previous elections. This purchase will allow these machines to be in each voting precinct.

Austin said the machines are more user-friendly and more secure.

“These voting tabulators are color touch screen, can be easily sanitized, [and] have a proprietary security system that isn’t hooked into a world wide internet. There’s a lot of concern with that, and we are very concerned about that, too,” Austin said.

Adams County Board Chairman Kent Snider echoed that saying the new equipment will make voting easier, and faster.

“The voting machines will be touch screen, very, very nice, and this is a step into the next generation of voting,” Snider said.

Snider said the county will spend about $258,000 on more than 40 tabulators.

Meanwhile, the board also passed the resolution for new elevators to be installed inside the Adams County courthouse and approved a $1.2 million IT upgrade.

ARPA funding will make those developments at the courthouse possible, too.

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