Jasper County elections office readies machines and poll workers for June primary; reports 25,775 registered voters

At a Jasper County Board of Registration and Elections meeting, the director delivered an operational report on preparations for the June primary, including programming voting machines, public testing, poll-worker training and efforts to address device connectivity issues.

“For information only, all I have is to report,” the director (speaker 3) began, saying the office had started programming voting machines and would hold public equipment testing prior to the opening of early voting. The director listed upcoming poll-worker training sessions: Friday night at Montevideoville, Saturday morning at Mont Carmel Baptist Center, and additional sessions at the Rockville Community Center and Sun City locations.

The director said the office is recruiting and will pay polling-location technicians and rent delivery trucks to move equipment: “So we will have 3 trucks on the road,” the director said, describing plans to ease logistics for the June primary.

On voter registration figures, the director said, “we’re currently now at 25,775, an increase of a 137 since our last report last month,” and noted faster growth in precincts such as Margaritaville, Sun City and Okeetee 2, which may require splitting precinct check-in areas into 1A/1B configurations.

Board members raised technical problems noted in recent poll-worker training: intermittent MiFi/Wi‑Fi issues were slowing e‑poll books at certain precincts. The director said the county compiled a list of affected precincts and the state and carriers (AT&T and Verizon) were being asked to investigate. Training will emphasize waiting for the printer to finish and allowing e‑poll books time to reconnect.

The director and board discussed operational details for public testing and logic-and-accuracy checks, clarifying that testing uses a curbside machine and DS300 tabulators to ensure programming is correct before deployment.

The board did not take formal action on these items at the meeting. The director said she will circulate procurement and vendor price information by email and follow up with finance on purchase-order possibilities for equipment acquisitions prior to early voting.

The board scheduled follow-up communications by email and discussed convening a special or virtual meeting if necessary before early voting starts so that procurement or personnel matters can be finalized.