Alameda County Gives RFID Ballot-Tracking a Vote of Approval

At the help desk, another employee spread the bags out on what RFID Global Solution calls its Smart Table, which contains embedded antennas linked to a fixed-position reader. Because the tags could be placed inside the interrogation zone created by the table for a longer period of time than when they were brought through the portal readers—which are also subject to RF interference from the deputies' bodies—the table was more likely to read all of the tags present inside each bag, as well as the bag tag itself.

During the Nov. 6 election, any tags missed by the portal reader were successfully interrogated at the Smart Table, so all voting assets used in the election were identified. What's more, all bags were accounted for within in an hour and 20 minutes of arriving at the central polling facility. This process previously took up to five hours, when the bar codes on each component and bag had to be manually scanned. All of the Nov. 6 votes placed in Alameda County were tallied before 11 pm that evening.

At the help desk, a staffer could spread the bags out on a Smart Table, which contains embedded antennas linked to an RFID reader.

Since the RFID system did not impact the county's existing means for collecting or counting individual votes, Macdonald says he did not need to seek federal or state approval to implement the RFID-based tracking system. And because it did not change the voting processes offered to voters—either manually, through a machine-read paper ballot, or electronically, through a touch-screen—voters have not protested the system.

"As the director of IT, I love technology, but the front end—the voter experience—that needs to be as low-tech as we can make it," says Macdonald, adding that while he feels the electronic polling machines work well, the public has a perception that they do not, and he can't change that opinion. "But on the back end [transporting and accounting for the ballots collected from the polling places], we need to implement technology for automated tracking, efficiency and better workflow."

Though the number of canvas bags being tracked and collected—and, more importantly, the voting data inside them—will be a thousand times larger during the Feb. 5 presidential primaries than it was for the local Nov. 6 election, Macdonald is confident the RFID system will work just as well. And in the future, he also hopes to begin employing an RFID-based system for tracking the thousands of pieces of voting equipment he must manage—from touch-screen voting machines to paper-ballot scanners.