Washoe County to showcase new Poll Pads at election open house Thursday

RENO, Nev. (News 4 & Fox 11) — Washoe County is inviting members of the community to an election open house on Thursday night to demonstrate the new Poll Pads ahead of Election Day.

Staff will be on site at the Washoe County Complex on Oct. 10 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. to answer questions as well as show voters how to use the new technology they'll be using when casting their ballot.

The new Poll Pads come asNevada election administrators officially transitioned over to a new statewide voter registration system ahead of the 2024 general election — a long-awaited project which leaders hope will streamline the process for voters and eliminate issues.

The new tablets will speed up the check-in process when Nevada voters arrive to the polls — but the real benefit is behind the scenes, officials said.

Unlike the previous system, where registrars and clerks in all 17 of Nevada's counties maintained a county database of registered voters, the state will now manage and update a statewide list.

The system, called Voter Registration & Election Management Solution (VREMS), was mandated by the 2021 Nevada legislature and cost $30 million. Initially intended to be implemented ahead of the June primary, the rollout was delayed at the request of many county elections officers.

It's described as a more modern approach to maintaining the voter rolls because it can update in real-time and eliminate the mistakes caused by different codes used by different counties.

For example, a coding error in the wake of the presidential preference primary caused the state's voter history to show some people had voted in the PPP when in fact they had not voted.

"Those issues occurred because of those 17 separate systems that each of the counties had. 17 systems trying to feed into one system at the state level," said Aguilar. "The coding is different from county to county. There is only one system now — the counties are directly inputting data into the one system. There is not a transfer of data from the counties."

Washoe County unveiled the Poll Pads to members of the media in September, now the public will get the chance to check them out ahead of early voting.