Philly will use electronic poll books this election. Here’s what you need to know.

Philadelphia polling places will have a new check-in experience Tuesday, a change that seems small but officials hope will have big impact: Voters will sign their names electronically on tablet computers instead of using a pen on paper.

That should be a minor change for voters. But behind the scenes, electronic poll books, often called “e-poll books,” have the potential to improve election administration in several ways. E-poll books have become increasingly popular, with some states having used them for years now, and they’ve gained traction in Pennsylvania: Several counties already use them, and more are piloting them this election.

Electronic poll books can speed up the voter check-in process; reduce the number of errors at polling places; make the vote count faster by several days; and improve the accuracy of election data. They also make it easier to adapt to any future changes such as early voting or same-day voter registration.

But there are also growing pains with any system, and Philadelphia’s first use of e-poll books could lead to confusion for some poll workers and voters. A new system comes with new opportunities for error, such as Berks County’s electronic poll book failures in last year’s primary that led to a switch to paper poll books on election day.

It’s not Philly’s first attempt to use electronic poll books, which city officials first said they would use in 2019 before discovering technical issues. City officials said they’ve thoroughly tested the new system and are confident in it.

Here’s what you need to know about Philadelphia’s switch to electronic poll books.

Voters have to sign in before being allowed to vote in person, creating a record of which people participated in the election. Traditionally, that process was done on large printed poll books. Poll workers would flip through books and pages to find the right name, and the voter then signs in a small box.

The electronic system replaces those thick printed books with a touchscreen tablet.

Poll workers search for a voter by typing in part of their name and selecting the voter from the results that pop up. Messages guide the poll worker at each step, for example to tell them that a voter is good to go or that the worker needs to check their ID because they’re a first-time voter.

The voter then signs using a finger on the touchscreen. The poll book displays that voter signature next to the voter’s signature on record for comparison. The poll worker then signs or initials to confirm the check-in.

“Check-ins take seconds,” said Nick Custodio, deputy to Philly elections chief Lisa Deeley, during a demonstration of the e-poll books.

Once the voter is checked in, the poll worker takes a blank paper ballot and inserts it into a printer to add information such as the name of the precinct.

The rest of the process is the same as before: The voter inserts the paper ballot into a voting machine, makes selections on the machine’s touchscreen, and casts the vote.

Interactively providing instructions every step along the way should reduce polling place errors and confusion, elections officials said.

“It’s way more intuitive for the poll workers to be able to give consistent and correct instructions,” said Jim Allen, elections director in Delaware County, which is testing electronic poll books in a handful of polling places this election. “They don’t have to remember what they think they heard in training a few weeks ago — it’s right there on the screen.”

For example, printed poll books divide voters alphabetically by last name across multiple books, and poll workers can sometimes get confused. If a poll worker can’t find the voter’s name at first for whatever reason, the voter can momentarily panic that something is wrong. The electronic poll books contain every voter, and poll workers can search using partial names and date of birth.

That also helps ensure the right voter is signed in, as sometimes voters accidentally sign in the wrong box when using paper poll books.

The e-poll books also help voters who show up to vote in the wrong precinct. With paper poll books, those voters are simply not listed, and poll workers try to help determine the right location. Some voters end up using provisional ballots instead of getting to the right place.

With e-poll books, the poll worker can select the voter, see the name and address of the correct polling place, and provide that information immediately.

Some of the biggest potential for improvement occurs behind the scenes.

It takes time to physically print thousands of poll books, so the information in them is usually a week or two old by election day. Elections offices spend significant amounts of time and work to update them.

“We would be going to other departments to get manpower to help,” said Tom Freitag, the elections director in Bucks County, which rolled out e-poll books last November. Now, he said, “it’s less of a burden.”

Electronic poll books can also speed up the vote count.

Mail ballots that Philly receives just before and on election day aren’t counted until after officials make sure those voters didn’t also cast ballots in person. That means thousands of votes have to wait until workers can update voter histories using poll books. With paper poll books, that’s a days-long process.

The electronic system is much faster, and Custodio said he expects that poll book reconciliation process to take just hours.

Any change in elections requires a transition period.

“It was a learning curve for the poll workers, some of whom worked for years and were used to the paper poll books,” said Freitag.

But poll workers are generally positive about e-poll books once they start using them, and Freitag said the transition was smooth overall.

A new system also creates opportunities for new kinds of mistakes, some of which can be hard to prepare for. Berks County implemented electronic poll books in last year’s primary but didn’t add voter signatures to them, making the e-poll books unusable on election day. The county scrambled to switch to the paper poll books it had prepared as backups, and a judge extended voting hours. The e-poll books were then used in November without major issue.

Philly has also run into problems before with electronic poll books.

The upgrade has been talked about for years but two prior attempts were pulled shortly before election day.

In 2019, the city commissioners, the office that runs elections, bought new voting machines and signed a $2.7 million contract for an e-poll book system they said would be used that November. Then they discovered the electronic poll books wouldn’t work well with the printers from the voting machine company, and the city scrapped the e-poll book plans less than two weeks before Election Day.

They later ended the contract and gave up on that system altogether, buying e-poll books instead from their voting machine vendor, Election Systems & Software, or ES&S. The ES&S poll books cost the city $3.1 million for 3,550 tablets and have an annual cost of $589,000.

The commissioners planned to use the ES&S poll books last November. But they once again weren’t ready, citing software issues.

“We put these things through the wringer. We put the old poll books through, and we put the new poll books through, and what has resulted is something that works,” Custodio said. “We weren’t going to roll something out that wasn’t ready for prime time.”

Philly will have backup paper poll books, but that’s just in case of emergency. Custodio said the electronic poll books are ready.

“We’re continuing to test these by the day to make sure the data’s loaded properly, they’re functioning properly,” he said. “Even though they were just tested, we’re retesting them to make sure they’re still working.”