The Rockford Board of Elections has two different pieces of voting equipment at the polling places on Election Day and during Early Voting, the ExpressVote and the DS200 Tabulator. They are both manufactured by Election Systems & Software.

ExpressVote

The ExpressVote is designed with a touchscreen to mark a ballot. A voter inserts a district-coded ExpressVote ballot into the machine, touches the screen to make their selections, and then touches the Print button to print those selections onto the ballot. The ExpressVote only prints the ballot. It does NOT CAST or COUNT the votes or transmit any vote totals. The ballot is only cast and counted when inserted into the second piece of equipment, the DS200 Tabulator.

The ExpressVote is an ADA compliant device, designed to allow all voters, including those who are visually or physically challenged, the ability to vote unassisted. Ballot choices and instructions are displayed in large print on the touchscreen and can be heard using audio headphones. Voters enter their selections by touching choices on the screen, pressing keys on the Braille keypad or using a personal ADA device such as a sip-n-puff.

DS200 Tabulator

The DS200 is designed to tabulate the election results. After marking the ballot, the voter inserts the ballot into the DS200 which counts the votes. At the end of Election Day, this equipment tabulates all the vote totals for a polling place and the vote results on secure recording media are transported by election judges to the main counting center.

The DS200 accepts two types of ballots, optical scan paper ballots and ballot cards from the ExpressVote. If using an optical scan paper ballot, the voter marks the ballot by filling in ovals next to his/her choices, then inserts the ballot into the DS200. Whichever type of ballot a voter uses, the vote is only counted when the ballot is inserted into the DS200.