$2.2M in contracts approved for next elections

NORRISTOWN » While the tumultuous 2020 election season has ended, county leaders approved more than $2.23 million in contracts and services related to the Montgomery County Office of Voter Services.

Officials are looking ahead to the 2021 primary and general elections. According to the county’s voter services office website, the primary is slated to take place on May 18, and the general election is scheduled for Nov. 2.

The package of four items, which consisted of an amendment and two renewals, was narrowly

approved in a 2-1 vote with Commissioner Joe Gale dissenting.

Of the $2,234,980 authorized during Thursday’s meeting, $2 million was allocated to renew an existing agreement between the county’s voter services department and NPC Inc., of Claysburg, Pa., for “election ballot printing and mailing services,” according to the contract.

The contract stipulates the amount won’t exceed $2 million, and it accounts for “four remaining optional annual renewal terms.”

The initial contract was awarded to the Blair County-based company for services related to the 2020 election cycle, according to Deputy Chief Operating Officer Barbara O’Malley, who added that it includes “optional annual renewals,” which she clarified would provide for the primary and general elections in 2021.

Gale had asked that the individual contract renewal item be taken out for a separate vote, but his request was denied.

Another six-figure contract for the “transport of election equipment,” was endorsed. The $128,000 one-year agreement with Clemmer Moving & Storage Inc., of Telford, would cover the “2021 election term,” according to the contract, with “two remaining renewals.”

A previously approved contract with William Penn Printing Company, of Pittsburgh, was renewed Thursday. The Pittsburgh-based firm supplied “election day boxes for the 2020 primary and general elections.”

The one-year agreement for the 2021 primary and general elections, which would not exceed $65,000, allowed for “three remaining optional annual renewal terms.”

Additionally, the county’s voter services initially entered into a $52,380 agreement Integrated Security Systems, of Harleysville, concerning security services at the Human Services Building “for the newly outfitted space that will be used for receiving and processing mail-in election ballots.”

According to the contract, the updated $41,980 agreement would cover the “installation of watcher rooms,” at the human services center, located Green Street in Norristown. The newly equipped room required “13 monitors and workstations.”

The contract also supplied “additional security services including cameras and access control to” the county’s human services center, as well as the “installation of cameras and access control to [the] voter services [department] at One Montgomery Plaza” in downtown Norristown.

The revised figure now stands at $94,360.

In other business, officials also unanimously approved the voter services office’s request for proposals for poll book printing and poll worker software.

For more information about ways to vote and registration deadlines, visit www.montcopa.org/753/ Voter-Services.

The next Montgomery County Board of Commissioners is scheduled for 10 a.m. Feb. 4.