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Ballot box fabricator navigates unprecedented demand for early voting

How metal manufacturing helps secure the ballots as more voters opt for mail voting

Ballot box early voting illustrious

More states than ever have ballot mail-in and drop-off options, and one Washington state fabricator is playing a key role. Getty Images

Pre-COVID-19, only a handful of states—including Washington, Oregon, and Colorado—mailed ballots to residents by default, giving them the option to mail completed ballots or drop them off at designated boxes. Now, of course, more states than ever are offering the drop-off option. That said, most voters and poll workers probably don’t give the design of the outdoor ballot box a second thought—but county and municipal governments sure have, and they’ve done so working with metal fabricators. One fabricator, Laserfab Inc., has been quietly making ballot drop-off boxes since 2010, and as of June of this year, for obvious reasons, demand has been through the roof.

Handling such a demand spike would have been challenging enough without the pandemic. Add COVID-19 and wild demand swings from its larger customers, and the juggling act gets even more complicated. Like many other shops, though, Laserfab has years of juggling experience.

Heading Into 2020

Laserfab had finished 2019 with more than $20 million in sales, and Kevin Frazer, president/CEO, had expected 2020 revenue to be strong. The fabricator has three plants in Washington state: Puyallup, outside Tacoma; Redmond, outside Seattle; and a third in Moses Lake, near the middle of the state.

The Moses Lake and Redmond facilities are equipped with laser automation and a full suite of forming and welding processes. In recent years the Moses Lake plant has also delved a little more into plate fabrication as well as CNC machining and powder coating.

The Puyallup facility, which doubles as Laserfab’s headquarters, has less automation, with no laser cutting towers to be found, but the lasers do have dual load/unload capability for quick changeovers. Both Moses Lake and Redmond plants support its large customers in the construction and manlift markets, while Puyallup services a variety of other customers along with the ballot box product line—though, of course, the operation can shift work as needed between the three plants.

In January Laserfab had significant demand from its high-volume customers, despite the uncertainties of an election year. And the election year was about to boost demand for the company’s ballot boxes, sold under the Vote Armor brand. Of course, back then no one would have guessed exactly how customer demand—for ballot boxes and across the Laserfab business—would play out.

The Ballot Box Business

A few years ago an SUV ran into a Vote Armor ballot box head-on. It wasn’t a malicious attempt at voter fraud or suppression, just a careless driver. Thing was, the ballot box remained fully intact. Sure, the bolts holding the box to the pavement broke, so the box tipped over. But its door was secure, its slot wasn’t crushed, ballots weren’t strewn over the parking lot, and election officials were still able to unlock the door and retrieve the ballots. That in a nutshell describes Vote Armor’s primary selling point.

Laserfab’s experience in the elections business began in early 2010 when Pierce County, which spans from Tacoma, west through Puyallup, and into Mount Rainier National Park, sent out for bid an order for highly secure drop-off ballot boxes. The county had a basic design it had used in the past, but election officials wanted more security features.

Laserfab won the bid, after which a collaborative design process began. As Vice President Larry Olson recalled, “We went back and forth with the design. And the ultimate key to every question asked during the process came back to the security of the box and the integrity of the elections process. So every design aspect we considered took that into account.”

The design needed to be ADA-compliant, with the slot accessible at a certain height. For strength, designers specified ¼-in. carbon steel plate, as well as fit-and-finish design features that prevented anyone from jimmying the door open with a screwdriver. Anyone looking to break in by destroying the hinge would be out of luck; the hinges are inside the box. The recessed door locks are tamper-resistant, and each county and municipality has a unique key. The locks themselves use ¾-in.-diameter hardened steel pins.

Ballot box

This ballot drop box in Denver, fabricated by Laserfab, has various security features built into the design. Image provided by Laserfab

“Beyond this,” Olson said, “the design process involved questions you really never think about.”

For instance, what if a ballot worker opens the box door, retrieves the ballots, shuts the door, but then forgets to lock it? To “engineer out” this problem, designers made the retrieval door close at an angle. The door can’t shut unless it’s locked, and it can’t stay slightly ajar either. It’s either locked or wide open, nothing in between. The box also has a slanted back that sends ballots voters drop toward the door or collection basket inside, so that poll workers need not reach into corners when emptying it. In case of rain, engineers designed flanges around the slot to act as a kind of robust gutter system that redirects rainwater or any other liquid.

The company has several base models—including walk-up and drive-up versions—that can be customized to suit. Some counties or municipalities require special ballot sizes, so the boxes require a special slot size.

For the past 10 years most demand for these boxes has come from election offices, mainly because they’re designed to be used for an application that requires high security. Some cities have used the boxes to accept tax payments and other secure documents. And as Olson explained, with COVID-19, more local governments are needing secure alternatives to what used to be face-to-face transactions, so opportunities are starting to emerge. That said, elections remain the box’s primary market, and that’s not likely to change.

The Coronavirus Roller Coaster

After its first ballot box for Pierce County in 2010, Laserfab sales representatives set up exhibit booths at election conferences, and the word spread quickly. “Counties would learn from other counties,” Frazer said. “Little by little, it spread, and it has continued to this day.”

The pandemic has sent demand skyward, which has caused Laserfab to shift projects among its plants. Until last year most ballot boxes were fabricated entirely in Puyallup, but now, because of the backlog, workers in Moses Lake are handling the overflow. Managers said they expect demand to peak until the early fall, after which demand will subside substantially.

Of course, 2020 has presented the fabricator with a host of other challenges too. When COVID-19 hit the Northwest in March, many of Laserfab’s largest customers, some considered nonessential businesses, were forced to shut down for weeks. Some large customers decided to remain shut down longer, simply because of the area’s rate of infection and the broader economic uncertainty. This left Laserfab no choice but to reduce its workforce by 50%, though the company has since rehired to about 80% pre-COVID-19 levels.

Increased demand for ballot boxes has helped, but even that business isn’t immune from financial uncertainty. As Frazer explained, many election officials held off pulling the trigger for orders because of budgetary and tax revenue concerns amid the pandemic.

“Earlier this year we thought [the ballot box] business would take off like crazy,” Frazer recalled. “But it didn’t right away. People waited and waited until sometime in June, and even then many local governments were only in the preliminary stages of discovery and hesitant to place orders.” By midsumer, though, it was off to the races. According to Olson, demand has essentially tripled from previous years.

The Final Sprint

Laserfab manages its three facilities with one production control system, monitoring its Mitsubishi lasers and tower systems. Real-time capacity utilization measurement has been critical for handling all of 2020’s demand variabilities.

Hawaii ballot box

This year Hawaii is moving to an all-mail election system for the first time, a move that has boosted demand for Vote Armor ballot boxes. Image provided by Laserfab

Demand at its principal customers is picking up, but at least as of this writing, it’s not back to pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, the company’s voting ballot box lines might eventually use capacity at all three Laserfab locations. The trick will be managing its product line demand with its core business.

“Our team is resilient, and we aim to be flexible and nimble,” Frazer said.

Ironically, Frazer and others at Laserfab are looking forward to after the election. Sure, the demand for ballot boxes may lessen in the short term, but the election itself will eliminate at least one major uncertainty going into 2021, which in turn will help Laserfab’s bread-and-butter business resume its pre-COVID-19 growth. “Election years are always tough, [but] we feel there’s pent-up demand,” Frazer said. “Still, it’s hard to say what will free that pent-up demand. Will it be getting the election over and done with? Or will it be a vaccine for the virus? It’s probably a combination of those things and much more.”

At least one uncertainty will be made certain in November, and Laserfab’s ballot boxes will play their part.

About the Author
The Fabricator

Tim Heston

Senior Editor

2135 Point Blvd

Elgin, IL 60123

815-381-1314

Tim Heston, The Fabricator's senior editor, has covered the metal fabrication industry since 1998, starting his career at the American Welding Society's Welding Journal. Since then he has covered the full range of metal fabrication processes, from stamping, bending, and cutting to grinding and polishing. He joined The Fabricator's staff in October 2007.