Special Election for amendments and Parmer County’s new voting machines
By Susie Spring, Parmer County Clerk
This past week, we received training on our new ExpressVote Machines. These machines meet all the requirements for security set by the Texas Secretary of State and Election Code. They will be in use during early voting and on Election Day this year.
The ExpressVote is not connected to the internet. It does not count your vote. You have complete control if you choose to vote using the ExpressVote. You may vote your precinct on the ExpressVote no matter in which precinct you reside.
After presenting your photo ID to the poll workers and being determined to be a registered voter, you will be given a paper ballot that will be blank except for a bar code indicating which precinct you will be voting.
You will place that paper in the machine and the ballot is displayed on the screen. It is colorful and large enough to read easily. If you need a black and white contrast to see it better, we can do that. If you need the ballot read to you, we have headphones and we can do that. If you read Braille, we have a key pad that offers that.
You simply touch the screen to vote. When you have finished, the ExpressVote prints your ballot. You can read it, make sure it is correct and deposit it in the ballot box. If it is incorrect, you take it to a poll worker and declare that it is incorrect and you want to re-vote. As long as it has not been placed in the ballot box, you may re-vote.
Don’t worry, we also have the old big paper ballots that you color in the ovals. You can choose to vote that way if you prefer. We encourage you to try the ExpressVote machine. I think you will like it.
By using this machine we do not have to print a large number of ballots and this saves the County and you the tax payer money. Because the ballot paper is blank and only printed when you vote, we save a lot of money on wasted ballots not used in this election. We can use the blank paper in any election in the future, thus preventing a lot of wasted paper.
Due to Legislative changes, early voting will ONLY take place at the County Clerk’s office at the Courthouse in Farwell. It begins Monday, October 21st and ends Friday, November 1st. Our office hours are 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. on Fridays.
On Election Day, Tuesday, November 5th Precincts 101, 202 and 402 will vote at the Friona Senior Citizens Center. Precincts 201 and 303 will vote at the Bovina EMS building. All other precincts will vote in their usual polling places.
Please call my office 806-481-3691 with any questions you may have.
Deputy Clerks Breann Saenz and Esmeralda Vazquez, along with County Clerk Susie Spring, are shown demonstrating the new ExpressVote Machine.
