Jan. 13 Summit County Council committee meetings
Covered by Documenter Abby Darin-Evans (see their notes here)
A significant delay in reporting poll results in Summit County occurred on Election Day in November 2024, with the process taking about two hours longer than in 2020.
Officials with the Summit County Board of Elections (BOE) attributed the delay to the volume of late-arriving absentee ballots.
At Summit County Council’s Jan. 13 meeting, BOE officials provided updates on why the delays happened and outlined the steps they are taking to improve future election processes.
BOE Director Lance Reed told council members that during the November 2024 election it took the board about four hours to fully process and finalize the vote counts.
Officials share election night timeline
BOE workers received the first precinct data, referred to as “poll sticks,” at approximately 8:15 p.m., with the initial results available by 8:45 p.m.
Election officials uploaded the first poll sticks to BOE computers around 10:15 p.m. They released final results to the public at around 2:20 a.m.
“As you know, 10,000 absentees is a lot of paper by itself,” Reed said.
Officials used a dedicated three-hour window in the evening to handle the volume of absentee ballots.
Supervisors in the BOE’s information technology department investigated delays into ballot counting and poll results.
New vote tabulation system put into use
The 2024 election was the first in Summit County to utilize additional upload stations and a new, modern tabulation system designed to prioritize cybersecurity.
BOE officials explained that while the new encryption system improves security and transparency, it also increases the time required to process and upload results.
“The old system prioritized speed over cybersecurity,” said Kevin Moreland, co-director of IT for the BOE. “Elections will no longer be quick. It will be a longer process. But the tradeoff will be accuracy, transparency and a more secure election system.”
Absentee ballots, communications cited as concerns
Deputy Director Pete Zeigler said the BOE was able to upload all absentee ballots ahead of March poll closures. However, officials did not achieve the same efficiency in November.
“Obviously it was not the intention of any of us … to delay the polls until absentee was completed,” Reed said. “Part of it looks like it was a communication issue.”
Reed said part of the process of counting mail-in absentee ballots involves ensuring blank ballots, overvotes, or “double bubbles,” where a voter fills in a candidate but writes in the same candidate, are handled according to protocol.
BOE officials acknowledged the need to find a “sweet spot” for balancing security and speed.
Bethany McKenney, the Summit County Council member for District 7, asked about future timelines for election night results.
BOE officials said they want to finalize counts by midnight.
Officials told council members that ongoing improvements will result in better outcomes.
Election security, not speed, becomes focus
“Elections will no longer be a quick process, but the tradeoff will be security,” Moreland said.
Reed added that future elections would continue to focus on providing accurate results promptly. Additional refinements to workflows and communication processes would happen as well.
He said the BOE’s goal is to document and finalize processes before early voting begins in April ahead of the May 6 primary election.
Erin Dickinson, the council vice president, asked board officials how they would document any procedural changes moving forward so voters or candidates are aware of possible delays due to security enhancements ahead of time.
The BOE will reach out to elected officials and other stakeholders to inform them about new timelines and expectations, Zeigler said.
“There’s just no way we can get results as fast as we could under the old systems,” Zeigler said.
“By the time this May election is coming up, our [internal] processes are going to be pretty solid, and I’m very confident that we’re going to have results as quickly as we can.”
