Lake County’s voting machines will be ready to go when early voting starts next week, and the Lake County Election and Voter Registration Board has the tests to prove it.
After Tuesday’s board meeting, Lake County Election Board members and other employees conducted the second test of the year on the machines. The Board, along with voting machine vendor MicroVote out of Indianapolis, tested 60 of the 1,300 machines that will be used or available as backups.
Taking six machines at a time, the testers “voted” two at a time on ballots for the Democratic, Republican, Libertarian and Lincoln Party, under which Secretary of State candidate Greg Ballard is running, Republican Election Board member Carly Brandenburg said. They were also asked to vote on referendum ballots and write-in candidates.
Testers were also asked to “make a mistake” that would require a poll worker to restart their ballot, Brandenburg said. A voter, for example, may decide they want to vote after all for a public question after they already voted “No,” so the poll worker can void the person’s initial ballot and restart the process for them.
The vendor, meanwhile, is looking at several variables, MicroVote General Manager Steve Shamo said. The machines, if they’re running properly, should see straight-party ticket voting coinciding with the candidates and ensure the voter is voting for the correct number of candidates per office.
Shamo and MicroVote Director of Customer Service Bill Haas also tested the mail-in and absentee ballot deck to confirm it’s receiving the ballots properly and confirmed that all the ballots transferred to the central tabulation accurately. At one point, one of the machine’s audit trackers glitched, but that’ll be an easy enough fix, Shamo said.
None of the MicroVote machines have any wireless capabilities, so any outside interference is impossible, Haas said.
“I always joke that this test is to check and see if the people can press the buttons,” Haas said. “The true test, however, is when the (Indiana) State Board of Accounts comes in and tests our machines for a recount. They’re the real experts, and (MicroVote) has matched their counts every time.”
Another test that Election Board Executive Director Michelle Fajman will conduct over the coming weeks will consider early voting. As the votes come in, the votes will have the voter’s name but will be “sealed” and given a number, she said. Then, if the Election Board office gets word of a voter who moved out of their district or dies before Election Day, they can pull and destroy that person’s ballot.
“We’ve had situations where someone moved and kept checking indianavoters.in.gov, and their registration wasn’t coming up, so they went to the place where they last voted because they figured it would count. Well, then we’ll get notification that their address has changed, so we’re able to pull their ballot and cancel it, and they can vote in their new location,” Fajman said. “I think we’ve had only one person die before Election Day, though.”
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Brandenburg and Election Board Proxy Matt Fech were happy to part of the testing.
“Whatever we can do to ensure voting is safe, I’ll do it,” Fech said.
“This test is open to the public, so I wish more people would come out and see what we’re doing,” Brandenburg added. “If they did, I think there wouldn’t be so many questions or concerns over the process.”
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.