Starting with Toledo’s municipal primary in September, poll workers will have electronic tablets to keep track of who’s voting.

The Lucas County Board of Elections will vote next month on which of two tablet vendors it will use. Both vendors had representatives at the elections board’s regular monthly meeting today.

The 550 computer tablets will replace the bulky signature books and clerk books that are assigned to each of the county’s more than 300 precincts at election time.

LaVera Scott, deputy director of the elections board, said the board has held several mock elections to allow its staff to try out competing products to find out which one works best.

“We gave them evaluations and since they are the ones who are going to use it we thought it definitely would be beneficial to get their input,” Ms. Scott said.

The goal is to use the machines in the Toledo municipal primary Sept. 12 to sign in voters and then again in the countywide general election in November.

The machines are expected to cost up to $836,000, with the Ohio Secretary of State’s office furnishing about $517,000, and Lucas County responsible for the remainder.

Pete Gerken, president of the Lucas County board of commissioners, said the board intends to buy the machines, despite the current budget squeeze.

He said the Ohio Secretary of State closely oversees the elections board but expects Lucas County to pick up much of the cost of the operation.

“More unfunded stuff from the state,” Mr. Gerken said. “The Secretary of State has authority, but when it comes to cost his hands are stuck in his pocket.”

Mr. Gerken said it’s up to the board which system they choose.

The vendors are Tenex Software Solutions of Tampa, Fla., and Election Systems and Software of Omaha, Neb.

Tenex’s tablet is based on Apple iPad. ES&S uses a Toshiba tablet using Windows.

Gina Kaczala, elections director, said the county has to decide soon, both to get its machines ordered and to avoid missing the June 30 deadline to use the money.

“Both of these are pretty much neck and neck,” Ms. Kaczala said. She said a third vendor was rejected because the unit had too many parts.

Ms. Scott and Ms. Kaczala said the advantages of the electronic poll books are that they immediately update the voter registration database when a voter signs in. At present, elections board staffers laboriously go over the two sets of election books to record who voted, a process that takes two weeks.

The books will cut down on the kind of human error that occurred in the last election when a pollworker accidentally had a voter sign the name of a different voter with a similar name, temporarily creating suspicion of voter fraud.

“It will increase the accuracy of voters getting the correct ballot,” Ms. Scott said.

The machines will also capture the voter’s updated signature style.

Ms. Scott said she believes that Ohio will eventually leave behind the current practice of having more than 200 polling places sprinkled throughout the county, requiring more than 1,200 temporary workers, and switch to a handful of voting centers. The electronic books all are linked to the voter registration database, unlike the paper books that each have the names only of the voters in a specific precinct.

Both companies have customers in Ohio, including Montgomery County for ES&S and Hamilton County for Tenex.

Another potential advantage is that the machines will allow the precinct poll workers to wrap up their work more quickly at the end of election day - in 30 minutes instead of 60 minutes, speeding up the time in which the election results can be counted and announced.

Contact Tom Troy: tomtroy@theblade.com or 419-724-6058 or on Twitter @TomFTroy.

First Published February 14, 2017, 10:01 p.m.