Ada County has remodeled its elections office, in time for voting this November. The renovations were completed over six months with federal funding.
Election officials say the goal is to be radically transparent to citizens about the entire election process.
Nearly every wall inside the building is windowed. Security cameras capture every angle of every room where employees are processing ballots.
Observers can watch live feeds of the ballot counting on YouTube or in a freely accessible viewing room at the front of the building.
Trent Tripple, the Ada County Clerk, oversees county elections. He said the changes were made with the public in mind.
“Posting everything online, making everything glass in here as much as possible, goes to that notion of trying to help build trust back up in the general populace, which we have done here," said Tripple. "We've built a window that now everybody can look into and go, ‘oh, I see what's happening.’”
The security measures also extend to equipment. The office’s paper ballot counting machines are custom built so they can’t connect to the internet. All voting machines are now stored in cages inside the building’s warehouse.
And they’re rolling out new printers at polling locations, which produce a new ballot for each voter. That means ballots won’t be pre-printed before election day.
Office workers have been moved away from the viewing spaces and onto a new second floor.
Early voting began Monday in Ada County. Absentee and early voting ballots can be cast at the office through Election Day on November 4.
