New Election Board Offices Operate Smoothly

Tuesday's primary was the first voting for the Montgomery County Board of Elections new site on North Frederick Avenue, and the early returns show it worked well.

Location for the elections board is important because of the security built around the balloting. A car from each of the county's 243 precincts drives the electronic equipment into the offices, causing a queue out of the industrial park and onto the thoroughfare. Police signage directed cars around the line of election judges.

The elections board's old site, in the Twinbrook neighborhood, forced all those cars to snake through small residential streets, said Margie Rohrer, elections board spokeswoman.

Cars, each carrying one Democratic election judge and one Republican election judge, pulled up to the board's back entrance where three teams collected the PC memory cards that contained the balloting and electronic poll books that contain voter registration information.

The teams then carried the equipment inside the building where other workers transferred the data into computers for the vote count.

Once the car was processed, it drove off. The arrangement looked a bit like the pit at a stock car race.