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Mahoning County rolls out new election reporting system
By JuSTIN WIER
YOUNGSTOWN
The Mahoning County Board of Elections will be rolling out a new system Tuesday that allows residents to track election results online, both across the county and precinct by precinct.
Mahoning County is the first in the state to use the TotalVote election-night reporting system, a product of South Dakota-based BProInc. The system is used in 10 states and 350 counties nationwide.
Tom McCabe, deputy elections board director, said the system cost about $10,000 and will be easier to use for voters and media organizations. The county currently uploads PDF printouts created by its tabulation system, and precinct-by-precinct results are not easily available.
George Munro, government outreach director for BPro, demonstrated the system. He said the results won’t update in real time, since the system does not tabulate votes, but they will quickly become available as the county enters results into the system.
“We’re excited to be the first in the state to do this,” McCabe said.
Voters can click on a particular race and then find out what the turnout was or how people voted in their precinct.
There is a list of precincts, and also a map users can click on.
“The average voter doesn’t know what precinct they live in,” Munro said. “But they know where they live on a map.”
Voters also will be able to access the results after the election and create Excel files displaying vote totals, which Munro said can be used by political parties to strategize for future elections.
Residents interested in seeing how the county voted can view results at http://ohio.totalvote.com/Mahoning. Totals will start to appear after polls close at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.