At the end of the week, when the cards are full of time stamps, they are funneled from the employees' respective department heads to the personnel department to be verified before being taken to the treasurer's office for review.
They then return to the department heads for another look. Assuming there are no questions about the cards - deciphering between a 3 and an 8, for example - the process is at last complete.
County officials say the procedure consumes a total of 370 hours of work by 58 employees every week.
It is also, according to some county officials, an indication of the need for a dramatic overhaul of the way the county does business.
After years of procrastination, proponents say, the time has come to bring the county into the 21st century.
"We want to fundamentally change the way we do business in Saratoga County," said Saratoga Springs Supervisor Matt Veitch, who is leading the charge as head of the county's new Technology Committee.
Wireless Internet in county offices, updated computer systems and software, a push to use more electronic communications - just one-third of county employees have email - and an improved county website are among the items officials are looking to address.
The time card system, which officials say dates back at least three decades, is also being targeted for replacement.
Officials acknowledge they have been stingy about updating the county's technology infrastructure and are, for the most part, receptive to the idea of getting current.
But after years of operating on the same systems, the transformation will not occur overnight, they said.
"This is not something that is going to happen in the next two or three months," said County Administrator Spencer Hellwig. "This is a long-term vision."
One reason for the slow evolution is that the upgrades will be time consuming and could require a fair amount of training. The other is that county officials are hesitant to dedicate large sums of money to the effort at a time when finances are tight.
Updating all of the county's computers and making other upgrades represents an investment officials describe simply as "substantial," but an early move indicated the potential costs involved. The technology committee's effort to upgrade the county's email system to block thousands of spam messages that were clogging inboxes and inviting viruses cost $20,000.
That expense represented two-thirds of the county's budget for technology upgrades this year.
However, the cost of upgrades could be offset by resulting efficiencies, some county officials said. Updating to a new time card system, for example, could save approximately $1.1 million a year by reducing errors and processing time, officials estimate.
Saratoga County District Attorney Jim Murphy provided another example, saying investigators and attorneys working cases during off hours have to come into county offices to access computer files and other programs needed to create search warrant applications and other documents.
Such programs can and should be made available to employees at home using a virtual private network in an effort to save time and money, said Murphy, who described his office's technology infrastructure as being in the "dark ages."
"For us not to have that technology is daunting," Murphy said. "Crime doesn't happen between 9 and 5, so it would be great to have that access."
Veitch, whose background is in telecommunications, said similar stories are being related to him from department heads around the county.
Bringing the discussion to the fore, he acknowledges, has led to a flood of requests, many of which can't be filled right away.
But while the initial overhaul may seem daunting, he said, the end result will be well worth the effort.
"Any decision we make, there is going to be money involved," he said. "The investment is going to be substantial. But at the end of the day, I think it's going to be well worth it."