Adams County to Use Vote Tabulators May 19
In a first for Adams County, tabulators will be used to tally votes after polls close on May 19.
The county recently purchased these tabulators at a cost of just over $57,000. About $22,000 was covered by a Help America Vote Act grant and the remaining approximately $35,000 came from the county’s Consolidated Election Fund, which are state funds the county has received in recent years.
What will be different for voters on Election Day? Voters will still check in with a poll worker when they arrive at their polling location to receive their paper ballots. They’ll take those paper ballots to the voting booth and mark them just like every past election here in Adams County.
However, when the voter goes to return their ballots they will slide them into the tabulator which scans and then secures them in a locked bin underneath, instead of dropping the ballots in the secure box as in past elections. Additionally, if the voter accidentally ‘overvotes’ (voting for more than one option in a two candidate race) the voter will be given an opportunity to fix the error before final submittal of their ballot.
At the recent logic and accuracy test, Adams County Clerk Sherry Ward and Elections Director Teressa Schuyler emphasized that these are not voting machines and that there is always a paper trail to fall back on. The county purchased the DS300 tabulators which you can read about at https://www.essvote.com/products/ds300/.
In Idaho, the Secretary of State’s office certifies each model of tabulator that can be sold in the state. Without this approval, the tabulators can’t be purchased by counties in Idaho. You can read about certified voting systems here: https://sos.idaho.gov/elections-division/certified-voting-systems/. Additionally, these tabulators do not have the capability to connect to the internet, per state code. The hardware isn’t present to connect
There are a lot of good questions that come with adopting technology in the vote counting and verification process. Every question that was posed to Ward and Schuyler at the public test, was answered by explaining the controls that are in place to ensure elections are fair and results are accurate.
I highly recommend watching the Logic and Accuracy test for this election which took place last Tuesday, April 28. Go to https://youtu.be/Utiw9gWrO78 to view the presentation and listen to audience questions. You can also search The Record Reporter on YouTube. It was a very informative presentation with many questions asked by the public that we don’t have space to include here.
There will be future public logic and accuracy tests of these tabulators before each election that they will be used in. The next test will be sometime in October for November’s election.
