Village purchase to streamline voting process

Voting may never be the same again in the Village of Belgium. Officials plan on the procedure going much faster.

The Village Board this month approved spending as much as $9,000 to buy Badger Books electronic polling system.

“It’s basically laptop electronic poll books,” Clerk Theresa Bartley said.

“It makes the lines go a lot faster. There are less errors that can be made. At the end of the night, we can get out of here a lot quicker.”

Once voters sign in, their names are printed out along with their voter numbers. Those registering don’t have to get back in line to vote. The system does that all in one process.

“Let’s say it’s a half hour in line. It can cut it down to 10 minutes,” Bartley said.

“Now, one person at a time can check into the poll book, and it takes two people to check in one person,” Treasurer Vickie Boehnlein said.

Forty-two states use the system, Bartley said. Poll workers would be trained on the system.

The village is buying the system with money from its fund balance, which Boehnlein said is “very high” at nearly $400,000 with money likely to be added since the village was under budget in 2024.