ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – Orange County’s supervisor of elections office is making election history with the first livestream broadcast of official ballot vote counts in the state.
Newly appointed Supervisor of Elections Glen Gilzean told News 6 the technology was always available and he wanted to add another layer of transparency to the overall process.
Cameras have always been in place to show the vote tally process on monitors for overflow crowds in a separate room and the hallway.
“The true intent is to show that our elections are safe, the votes are counted and more importantly there’s transparency,” Gilzean said.
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Gilzean told News 6 he is very pleased with the smooth debut of the livestream technology which took about a week to get up and running and had a soft opening on Thursday.
He said he credits his staff, which represents “400 years of experience,” for the smooth test run.
“I’m beyond ecstatic with this amazing team,” Gilzean said. “We were able to do this for the citizens of Orange County. All you have to do is log on to our main website, click ballot processing live stream (beta) and you will be able to see it right then and there.”
The live stream feed is running daily so when staff is working to count and confirm the votes you can watch without ever walking into the building.
“This is the beta testing to make sure that we have the right system in place to accommodate thousands of voters that might be watching the canvas,” IT specialist Daniel Reis told News 6.
Reis, The Chief Information officer for the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Office, said the mail-in ballots are just the start of what voters will see via the live stream video feed.
“At some point, we will start processing the early voting ballots as well, then election day ballots,” Reis said. “Every single ballot that gets cast will go to this room and get tabulated and processed with the high-speed machines.”
Judge Jeanette Bigney, the chair of the Orange County Supervisor of Elections Canvassing Board, said the voters deserve transparency.
Bigney, a county judge, said the staff “goes through the ballots first, any discrepancies or questions go to the canvassing board.”
The board consists of three members and three alternates always observing the vote count process.
Bigney admits there may be issues with the streaming process but she wants to reserve any judgment until the system gets a full test.
“It’s new,” Bigney said. ”And with anything new, there may be some issues but we’ll see how this rolls out.”
If you want to observe the ballot processing, click here.
Click onto Ballot Processing Live Steam (BETA). Then fill in your name, address, zip code and email. Hit submit, click the link and you will be able to watch the process via live stream.
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