Locally developed camera-equipped ballot boxes coming to some Cache County communities

County Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield checks the battery charge on the prototype of a camera-equipped ballot drop box in the County Election Center on Dec. 28. The ballot box, jointly developed by Bradfield and chief deputy Bryson Behm, will help to ensure that all Cache County communities comply with a new state law that drop boxes now be monitored.

CACHE COUNTY – Outgoing County Clerk/Auditor Jess Bradfield’s legacy of modernization of his office will include developing a camera-equipped ballot box.

“As far as I know,” he says while demonstrating the prototype ballot box, “it’s one of kind.”

The ballot box will include a battery powered camera system that will record residents depositing ballots on a one-week continuous loop.

Under new state laws, all ballot boxes must now be continuously monitored.

Most municipalities in the Cache County fulfill that requirement by placing their ballot boxes adjacent to their city halls with a fixed camera looking down on them.

But some of Cache County’s smaller cities and towns don’t have external cameras or recording systems.

The new boxes with built-in cameras will allow those city officials more flexibility in choosing locations for their ballot box while still providing the state-mandated monitoring.

“We have the prototype now and have ordered another three for a total of four,” Bradfield explains. “We plan to place them out this year so that all cities will have a ballot drop box.”

At a cost of about $4,000 each, the camera-equipped drop boxes will be funded at no cost to Cache County with a $21,000 state grant, according to deputy clerk Bryson Behm.

The advantage of the new boxes, Bradfield added, is that they don’t require any custom after-market components – any camera can be fitted into the upper portion of the box — and the lower portion of the box will accommodate a standard mailing bin.

The outgoing county clerk expects that the camera-equipped drop boxes will help to address concerns about the possibility of voter fraud via ballot stuffing.

“If a citizen has any concerns about that,” he says, “he or she can contact the office of the clerk. We can then pull the camera footage to determine if any malfeasance has occurred.”

Bradfield expressed his gratitude to the local fabrication facility Ducworks, Inc. for turning the ideas for the camera-equipped drop box that he and Behm drew up into reality.

Ducworks is a manufacturer of custom hardware and components located in a 50,000-square-foot fabrication facility here in Logan.

Bradfield says that he and Behm plan to post their designs for the camera-equipped ballot box online so that other Utah counties can use them if they choose to do so.

Behm says that the prototype of the camera-equipped ballot box will likely go to Clarkston once that community has completed construction of its new city building.

Other cities now under consideration for installation of the camera-equipped ballot boxes when they become available later in 2023 include Paradise, Trenton, Amalga and River Heights, among others.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

For security, use of Google's reCAPTCHA service is required which is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.

I agree to these terms.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.