Voting Machine Tests Go ‘Smoothly’
March 27, 2024 at 6:02 p.m.
Testing of the county’s voting machines went smoothly Wednesday morning, said Kosciusko County Clerk Ann Torpy.
She said only 5% of the county’s voting machines were tested Wednesday. The county has 220 machines and will use about 165 during the primary election, using the rest as backups.
Ball State has a program called VSTOP (Voting System Technical Oversight Program) and they work with the Indiana Secretary of State to get the voting machines certified through the state and the federal Election Commission to get standards on the certification process on those machines.
VSTOP has a list of all the voting machines the county has and they create a random list of machines they want the county to test to make sure they’re ready. The voting machines are tested have to be among the machines used during the election.
For the testing, Torpy said they created a test deck and the Kosciusko County Election Board cast votes based on the predetermined votes they had on the machines. The votes were then tabulated.
The Election Board includes Austin Rovenstine for the Republicans and Bill Morton for the Democratic Party. As Morton was unable to attend the testing Wednesday, Jack Brunetto filled in for him.
As part of the testing, they tried to see if the machines would register a vote for candidates on the ballot and not register any overvoting.
State law requires that the machines be tested before every election.
Early voting starts April 9, so the machines have to be tested before then or they’re not allowed to be used in the election.
If there is any issue with a voting machine, that machine has to be pulled and can’t be used until its fixed. Torpy said no machine has failed testing while she’s been in office as far as she remembers.
Wednesday afternoon, Torpy said the testing results that morning were accurate, took about an hour and a half “and we are ready to move forward with election day.”
She said many people don’t know that the voting equipment is tested before every election. Once they hear about the testing, she said, they “relax a little.”
Torpy also said the county plans on participating in a postelection audit to test the accuracy of the voting machines. Elkhart County participated in a similar audit and their machines were deemed to be 100% accurate.
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Testing of the county’s voting machines went smoothly Wednesday morning, said Kosciusko County Clerk Ann Torpy.
She said only 5% of the county’s voting machines were tested Wednesday. The county has 220 machines and will use about 165 during the primary election, using the rest as backups.
Ball State has a program called VSTOP (Voting System Technical Oversight Program) and they work with the Indiana Secretary of State to get the voting machines certified through the state and the federal Election Commission to get standards on the certification process on those machines.
VSTOP has a list of all the voting machines the county has and they create a random list of machines they want the county to test to make sure they’re ready. The voting machines are tested have to be among the machines used during the election.
For the testing, Torpy said they created a test deck and the Kosciusko County Election Board cast votes based on the predetermined votes they had on the machines. The votes were then tabulated.
The Election Board includes Austin Rovenstine for the Republicans and Bill Morton for the Democratic Party. As Morton was unable to attend the testing Wednesday, Jack Brunetto filled in for him.
As part of the testing, they tried to see if the machines would register a vote for candidates on the ballot and not register any overvoting.
State law requires that the machines be tested before every election.
Early voting starts April 9, so the machines have to be tested before then or they’re not allowed to be used in the election.
If there is any issue with a voting machine, that machine has to be pulled and can’t be used until its fixed. Torpy said no machine has failed testing while she’s been in office as far as she remembers.
Wednesday afternoon, Torpy said the testing results that morning were accurate, took about an hour and a half “and we are ready to move forward with election day.”
She said many people don’t know that the voting equipment is tested before every election. Once they hear about the testing, she said, they “relax a little.”
Torpy also said the county plans on participating in a postelection audit to test the accuracy of the voting machines. Elkhart County participated in a similar audit and their machines were deemed to be 100% accurate.