In this file photo, voters take to the polls at Cornerstone Southern Baptist Church, 802 W. 22nd Terrace, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008.

The Douglas County Clerk’s Office will be looking to purchase a new voting system next year, but county voters shouldn’t expect the introduction of computerized touch-screen voting technology such as exists in Johnson County.

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said the clerk’s office was looking to replace the system introduced in 2006. That system was state of the art when acquired a decade ago and still functions well, but the new precinct tabulators will be much more portable than the current 85-pound machines, which are awkward to move when there is a need to accommodate voters with disabilities, he said.

One thing won’t change with a new system, Shew said. County voters will continue to fill out paper ballots, which they will then put into a tabulator, he said. Newer tabulators are available with view screens, which inform voters that their ballots have been accepted, he said.

“There are now tabulators that print out a receipt,” he said. “Voters can walk out of the polling place with a piece of paper saying they voted. I’m pretty excited about the features now available on precinct tabulators.”

The clerk’s office has been saving for a new system for about five years, and the about $1 million on hand should cover the cost of the purchase, Shew said.

Although Shew is wedded to the security of paper voting systems, the clerk’s office doesn’t shy away from computer technology. Every county polling site on election day will have an electronic polling book with the names of registered voters in the precincts voting at that location, Shew said. The tablets replace the paper polling books voters previously signed before receiving ballots.

Shew said a few electronic polling books were introduced at high-volume sites in 2012. The electronic books speed up the process through the use of a driver’s license or state identification card to bring up a voter’s name, which eliminates the need to thumb through books.

“Electronic polling books were real line savers in 2012,” he said.

Shew assures residents that the only information in the electronic books is that from their voter registration forms; however, paper poll books are kept as a backup at poll sites for those uncomfortable with signing electronically.

Another area in which Shew wants to make progress is in sharing information. The clerk’s office has a robust website on which residents can search for their registration status and a sample of the ballot they will receive when voting, he said. A goal is to format that information for viewing on smart phones, he said.

Another hoped-for improvement is associated with the increasing popularity of mail-in advance voting. Shew said he would like to install software that would allow voters to track when advance ballots were mailed to them, where they are in the postal system once mailed and when they arrived at the clerk’s office.