Website, technology updated to help Manatee run smooth 2026 elections

Manatee County Supervisor of Elections Scott Farrington says the new website will be easier for the residents to navigate.

By Lesley Dwyer
| 8:00 a.m. January 6, 2026

With five main tabs on the home page, the website is intended to be easier to navigate.

East County
News

The Supervisor of Elections website has a new look, and SOE Scott Farrington is confident residents will find the website much easier to navigate.

“We have consolidated and categorized all the options so you can quickly find what you are looking for by hovering over the five main options,” Farrington said. “There is also a site map at the bottom of every page that makes navigation easier.”

The URL has not changed. Voters can still access the website at VoteManatee.gov. The updated version was launched Dec. 17.

Farrington said the previous website was dated, and users experienced many crashes, leading to the update. The website was last updated in 2015, and the site crashed during both the primary and general elections in 2024.

Scott Farrington is the Supervisor of Elections for Manatee County. — Scott Farrington is the supervisor of elections for Manatee County.

However, Manatee County was not the only election site to crash. Ben Martin, chief operating officer for the webhost, VR Systems, released a statement explaining what the company believed to be the issue following the primary election in 2024.

“Based on our analysis of today’s event, we believe the logging that was enabled as a security measure was at the root of the issues that our customers experienced. This log records the action on the content management system serving our customers' websites. Late in the day, it began to grow exponentially due to the increase in traffic to the websites. We believe this put extraordinary stress on the system.”

Farrington was a candidate running for his current position at the time, but it’s his understanding that once one VR Systems' site went down, it was essentially a domino effect that started crashing site after site.

The problems during the general election were not as severe as during the primaries, however, Manatee County is no longer using VR Systems' web hosting services. The county does still use its voter registration management system.

The new website was designed and built by the same company that redesigned the Manatee County website, Spinutech.

Farrington said Manatee County is the only Supervisor of Elections office that Spinutech hosts, so no one else’s traffic will affect Manatee’s site. He added that there are agreements in place that Spinutech will scale up its service during elections when the site is being overloaded with users.

While the updated website still contains all the same information, it also allows for more information to be added in the future, such as voter statistics.

In addition to an updated website, the SOE’s office has 102 new tabulating machines that were delivered in December. The cost was approximately $950,000.

The bulk of the machines will be deployed to polling locations for elections, and two will be used to count the vote-by-mail ballots.

Farrington said the machines will be cleared of all software so state certified software can be installed, which should be completed by early next month.

Small elections on March 10 for the Town of Longboat Key and the Trailer Estates will give elections staff a chance to get familiar with the new equipment ahead of the August primaries and November general election.

Farrington noted that the new system is similar and simple to use, but the screens look different.

"August is the first statewide, big election," he said. "We'll be ready to go."

Vote by mail

Scott Farrington, Supervisor of Elections for Manatee County, said a lot of voters don’t realize that vote-by-mail requests are only good through one election cycle. To receive a vote-by-mail ballot for 2026, voters need to renew their requests.

“An added benefit for us is that the earlier voters make their vote-by-mail requests, the better we can plan for the different methods of voting and help limit lines and provide a positive experience,” Farrington added.

Even if not voting by mail, voters are encouraged to check their voter information periodically to ensure that it is up to date. Changes on the voters’ part are typically name and address changes, but the election office makes changes to voting locations, too.

“Most delays in voting happen because something has changed,” Farrington said. “Taking five minutes to check now can save delays and aggravation when it’s time to vote.”

To check your voter information, visit VoteManatee.gov/check-your-status. To make a vote-by-mail request, visit VoteManatee.gov/about-vote-by-mail.

author

Lesley Dwyer

Lesley Dwyer is a staff writer for East County and a graduate of the University of South Florida. After earning a bachelor’s degree in professional and technical writing, she freelanced for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Lesley has lived in the Sarasota area for over 25 years.