Suffolk County Holds Library Demos for New Hybrid Voting Machines

Kandice Allgauer, a Suffolk County Board of Elections staffer, set up two of the county's new hybrid voting machines at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor earlier this month, making it the first East End stop on a countywide demonstration tour that has moved through North Shore libraries and runs through April 17, just weeks before the machines make their official debut at the June 23 primaries.

The machines were purchased for $35 million approved by the Suffolk County Legislature. They are made by Elections Systems and Software, a Nebraska-based company that supplies roughly 40 percent of counties across the country. In Suffolk, they replace a system voters have used for more than a decade, and the change is substantial enough that Board of Elections officials have been hauling the equipment to public libraries since February to make sure no one encounters it for the first time on primary day.

The new process works in steps that differ meaningfully from the old optical-scan method. Voters will still check in and receive a blank paper ballot, but instead of marking it by hand at a privacy screen, they will carry it into a fully curtained booth and insert it into the machine. A large touchscreen guides them through each race and ballot question, with multilingual options available. Once selections are made, the machine prints those choices directly onto the ballot so the voter can review exactly what was recorded before casting it. The completed ballot then drops into a locked cartridge inside the machine. Each cartridge holds roughly 350 ballots before poll workers swap it out.

The curtained booth is one of the more concrete changes visible to voters. Voting curtains were eliminated more than ten years ago when Suffolk replaced its previous machines. The new setup also includes accessible ballot-marking features designed for voters with disabilities, including those who cannot use a standard touchscreen. Election officials stress that the machines are not connected to the internet and produce a verified paper record of every ballot, preserving the ability to conduct hand-count audits if any result is contested.

Demonstrations have already taken place at Harborfields Public Library in Greenlawn, at John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor, and at the Amagansett Library on March 18. The Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library is also on the schedule. The East Hampton Library will host a session on April 17, the final date currently listed on the countywide calendar. Each session uses a mock election format, letting attendees make actual test selections for sample candidates rather than simply watching a slideshow.

Elections Systems and Software drew scrutiny in 2024 after ballot-printing errors caused polling delays and left some voters unable to cast ballots in counties outside New York. Suffolk officials have not identified comparable issues with the machines being deployed here, but the scale of the outreach, which spans library stops from the North Shore to the South Shore to the East End, reflects how seriously the Board of Elections is treating first-impression problems.

The full and current demo schedule is posted at suffolkcountyny.gov/Departments/BOE. Early voting for the June 23 primary runs June 13 through 21. Anyone planning to attend one of the remaining library sessions should consider bringing a first-time voter; walking through a mock election together before primary day costs nothing and takes minutes.