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Lubbock County, TX

The voters in Lubbock County, Texas, didn't have any voting nightmares to deal with this past election. They had Laserfiche Document Imaging to keep voting confusion at bay.

One of the largest issues concerns ineligible voters coming to the polls. To keep voting fair and above board, it's imperative to keep track of who can vote and who cannot, especially in elections where the difference between winning and losing could come down to just a few votes.

A number of issues could deny someone their vote. For example, they may not be registered in that particular county, they may have recently moved or they may have been convicted of a felony. These reasons are legitimate but aren't always apparent to voters and polling station workers. In the past, these issues have caused contention, but in Lubbock County, these questions are now quickly answered by staff at the Voter Registration Office.

Dorothy Kennedy, Assistant Chief Deputy for Voter Registration in Lubbock, and her staff used Laserfiche to scan voter registration information so it could be easily indexed and searched. Armed with the voter's name, registration officials can now perform a quick search to gather all the information they need.

That information is important to have, according to Cody Bettis of Lubbock-based VP Imaging, a Laserfiche reseller. Bettis adds that, because of the confusion, ineligible people could slip through the cracks and vote.

Previously, to answer inquiries, Kennedy had to search through storage rooms overflowing with voter registration cards, change of address forms and change of surname information. Considering that each of Lubbock County's 154,000 registered voters could have 4 or 5 documents on file, it was often difficult to locate one particular document. "Voter registration takes up a lot of room," Kennedy says.

Prospective voters would sometimes have to wait weeks to find out, from a judge, why they weren't eligible to vote. On Election Day, many would be turned away from the polling booths with no explanation, except that their names weren't on file. "Voter registration doesn't follow you," says Kennedy, who wants voters to be aware that it is up to the individual to keep the Voter Registration Office up-to-date on name and address changes. But thanks to Laserfiche, this information will now be at election officials' fingertips on Election Day.