Voting machines test “all clear”

Laura Young
ECB Publishing, Inc.

On Friday morning, Oct. 14, the Jefferson County Supervisor of Elections Office successfully conducted the public testing of voting machines for the 2022 General Election. The county's machines are ready to start accurately counting mail-in ballots, ballots cast in early voting that begins on Monday, Oct. 24, and ballots cast at precincts on Election Day, Nov. 8.
The Logic and Accuracy (L&A) Testing is required by law and is conducted by the local canvassing board together with technicians from the voting machine manufacturer. The three-person local canvassing board must include Supervisor of Elections Justin “Tyler” McNeill, County Judge Robert Plaines (or his designee) and one representative from the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners. During last Friday's L&A Testing, the canvassing board members were McNeill, Jefferson County Property Appraiser Angela Gray (as Plaines' designee) and District 1 Commissioner Chris Tuten. Every candidate on the ballot was invited to attend the testing session, and the public is notified through a legal advertisement of the testing date and time. Those who came see the testing process included both candidates for Supervisor of Elections – Althera Y. Johnson (D) and Michelle Milligan (R) – and this reporter, as well as a couple of other individuals.
The testing ensures that voting machines accurately count votes cast, are able to identify any ballots that have a write-in candidate, flag ballots that are completely blank, and flag ballots that are “over-voted” (marked for more than one candidate in a single race). The testing is run for ballots printed in both English and Spanish, as well as ballots marked using the equipment for persons with disabilities.
Testing was conducted on the machines specifically programmed for counting mail-in ballots and ballots cast during early voting, which must be able to accurately read ballots from any of the county's 16 precincts. Other machines are programmed to read ballots from a specific precinct. For each machine being tested, 24 marked ballots were inserted by hand as they would be during an election, 12 in English and 12 in Spanish, for the relevant precinct(s). The ballots were marked so as to generate results that could be definitively compared with expected results.
For every machine tested, the results showed 100% success for “Logic,” which is the machine's ability to read the correct race in the correct order, as well as “Accuracy,” which is the machine's ability to read the marks and tabulate them correctly.
Had any machine produced results that were not as expected, the machine would have been fixed and retested; however, all the tested machines in Jefferson County performed as expected.
The canvassing board will also be involved in overseeing the counting of mail-in ballots. Following a set schedule, over the next few weeks they will meet to feed mailed ballots into the designated voting machine and be on hand to deal with any ballots that the machine flags, since the voter is not there in person to clarify or get help. For example, if someone made a mark for one candidate, scratched it out and made a different mark for another candidate, the machine would flag that ballot for the canvasing board to review before counting it. The board would, if possible, determine the voter's intent so the vote in that race could be counted. If the board was not able to determine intent, no vote in that particular race would be counted, but the other votes would be counted.
If voting by mail, voters are encouraged to send in their completed ballots as soon as possible, to allow for timely Post Office delivery.
Voters planning to cast their ballots early may go to the Election Office, located at 1175 W. Washington St. in Monticello, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. beginning Monday, Oct. 24, and continuing through Saturday, Nov. 5.
Election Day for voting at precincts is Tuesday, Nov. 8, with polling places open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
The Jefferson County Supervisor of Elections Office tabulates all votes for all methods on Election Day and sends them to the Florida Department of State Division of Elections. As the results are reported at the state level, the local website will also publish the results, with periodic updates until 100% of the votes have been reported.
For more information about voting in Jefferson County, visit www.jeffersonvotes.com.