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Chaves County Clerk Cindy Fuller explains the form filled out for each voting tabulator and system successfully tested to Chaves County Democratic Party Chair Sarah McArthur, one of three observers at the Thursday morning local certification of voting systems to be used for early voting in October.

Chaves County Clerk Cindy Fuller explains the form filled out for each voting tabulator and system successfully tested to Chaves County Democratic Party Chair Sarah McArthur, one of three observers at the Thursday morning local certification of voting systems to be used for early voting in October.

Although concerns about voting tabulators and systems have been voiced at local public meetings and in the courts recently, only three observers attended the testing and verification procedures conducted Thursday morning by employees of the Chaves County Clerk's Office and its Elections Bureau ahead of early voting starting Oct. 11.

The local certification of seven Dominion tabulators and related equipment to be used for early voting began at 9 a.m. and continued for about two hours in a room in Area D of the Chaves County Administrative Center.

Chaves County Clerk Cindy Fuller, Deputy Clerk Travis Williams, Elections Bureau Chief Casey Higgins and Elections Bureau Deputy Chief Stephanie Eldridge conducted several tests with each machine and answered questions for the observers.

In addition to a Daily Record reporter, people attending were Chaves County Democratic Party Chair Sarah McArthur and Chaves County Commissioner Dara Dana.

Certifications are open to the public, Fuller said. The local chairpeople for the two major political parties in the area, Republican and Democratic, were explicitly invited to the Thursday test.

Dana has been observing the procedures for about 12 years.

“I enjoy being part of the process. You can't know the process unless you are part of the process,” she said, adding, “There are plenty of opportunities to find out about the process and ask questions about the process.”

McArthur was observing for the first time.

“I just wanted to see the process for myself for the first time, to see what they do to get the machines ready for voting,” she said. “It's a lot.”

She added that she appreciated being able to see the technology working and felt reassured that the tabulators rejected ballots when needed.

The work of the four county employees — the only four with keys to the room monitored by a camera where voting machines are locked up when not used for elections — had several steps.

They reset all the machines to ensure that no tabulations from prior elections were still recorded. They tested the voting assistance mechanism. That allows the sight-impaired to hear the ballot choices and use a large touch screen to make selections. The machines then fill out paper ballots based on the selections, which are then returned to the voter for review before being submitted to the machine for tabulation.

They ran batches of 91 completed ballots through each machine — with pre-counted results already provided by the state — and many incorrectly filled out or wrong ballots to ensure that the tabulators read and rejected ballots appropriately. They intentionally tested the tabulators by running ballots from prior elections to ensure the ballots would not be accepted.

They compared the result tapes printed by the voting machine to a report printed on a separate computer, not connected to the internet. The separate report comes from data stored by a card in the machine, which also is “air-gapped,” or unconnected to the internet. When used during voting, the card slots are sealed, with the seals broken by a poll worker only after voting concludes.

Prior to the certification process, Fuller also had hand-tallied one of the races on the completed ballots to verify that the results the state had reported to the local office were, in fact, accurate. “I don't just take them at their word,” she said.

One tabulator malfunctioned during the tests, and Fuller said that it will be shipped to the manufacturer for repairs at no cost to the county. She added that the county has several extra machines. The testing process then was conducted on a new tabulator and its related equipment.

The next local certification will occur at 9 a.m. Oct. 17 at the county Administrative Center, 1 St. Mary's Place, to prepare for Election Day, Nov. 8. That is also open to the public.

Local voting system certifications prior to every election are only part of the entire certification and testing process, which also involves efforts at the state level to certify systems regularly and to test for accuracy of voting results reporting.

Lisa Dunlap can be reached at 575-622-7710, ext. 351, or at reporter02@rdrnews.com.

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