Tuesday was the day to validate vote- tabulating machines.
First they verify that the machine count starts at zero. Then they test the vote-count against a known result.
Everything has to be perfect.
Oregon's Jackson County Clerk is Christine Walker. She is a life-long Republican serving in what is now a non-partisan office. She had two public witnesses as she carried out the verification tests for the county's vote-tabulation machines. The law requires these tests prior to their use before every election. Robin Lee, a self-identified Republican and former candidate for a local school board, was there to observe. So was I. Machine tabulators have been a point of controversy nationally. Those systems faced accusations that they miscount or switch votes. Today's test was to make sure that doesn't happen. The whole machine-count system will be checked yet again right before the machine count that begins tomorrow and again twice more after the election. In addition, after the election some precincts will be drawn at random and they will be subject to a hand count.
Jackson County Clerk Christine Walker
Election Department personnel operated the three tabulation machines that are side-by-side in the large election department counting room. The machines look like this, with ballots fed into the top tray. Then they are scanned and counted. Then they drop into the lower tray.
The procedure begins with demonstrating that the machines count zero when there are zero votes to count, i.e. that there are no phantom votes hidden in the vote counts. The ballot decks begin with a "header card," to prime the machine to count. The header card has the name of the tabulation vendor, Clear Ballot.
The ballots go through the counter quickly. The read-out display above the machine shows the count speed on this first trial run: 223 per minute.
After the demonstration of zero votes counted, the Election Department does multiple runs of ballot decks with votes marked in the oval at each ballot position, with known counts for each candidate. The goal is to make certain that each of the oval spots on the ballot, one for each candidate, gets recognized and counted. That means there are no blind spots or spots where votes get counted twice.
The county is required to have one verified tabulation machine. In fact, the county has three, which speeds up tabulation and provides redundancy and a backup. We saw the value of that on Tuesday because the demonstration was delayed briefly. Tabulator #3 had a problem for a few minutes. A cable--this blue one--apparently needed replacement. A cable? What could go wrong? The county's IT department diagnosed and fixed the problem promptly. Apparently there was wear at the point of connection. It was the same issue that emerged in one of Multnomah County's (i.e. Portland) machines in previous elections.
The procedure for counting votes is complicated by the fact that there will be multiple write-in candidates for party precinct committee people and for one of the county commissioner positions. Those ballots need to be reviewed and tabulated by hand. Another complication is the many irregular ballots, for example ballots with stray marks, cross-outs, or ovals marked with an "X" rather than filled in. Under Oregon law, a ballot does not need to be perfect for its votes to be counted. For example, if the voter used an "X", or if the voter wrote in a name but failed to fill in the adjacent oval, the vote will still count if voter intent is clear. Voters sometimes mark a ballot, and then change their minds, and the instructions tell people to mark out the incorrect vote and to fill in the bubble for the correct candidate. All of this requires some interpretation and judgement to determine voter intent.
Questionable ballots are examined by two-person boards at tables like these. Note there are two chairs at each table, one for people from two different political orientations, Republican, Democratic, or Non-Affiliated. This resolves most problem ballots. Professional staff is available and is called in if questions remain regarding a ballot.
Ballots, once counted and tabulated are stored for later review and audit in boxes marked for each precinct.
One strong impression one gets from seeing the election department is its size and separation of function. The operation takes place on the second floor of a building that was formerly a large Safeway grocery store. There is room to spread out. There are spaces for in-person voting, rooms for ballots to be scanned and logged when they come in, rooms for opening the ballots with a slit along the bottom of the envelope, rooms for resolving questions, rooms for storing ballots. This is not a messy-desk operation. Everything is in tubs, put away, numbered, and logged. These votes below have gone through the process but are awaiting the tabulation verification before they are counted.
Observers of legislation being written sometimes make a cynical joke about "how the sausage is made." The joke signifies a messy, chaotic, highly-compromised arrangement, too ugly for the light of day. People may carry that analogy over into vote-counting. That is an error. I observed a highly disciplined, checked and double-checked arrangement, with every ballot logged, with every stage in the operation arranged to be able to stand up to verification in the moment, and to audit after an election.
I voted last week. My ballot is somewhere in those tubs with the pink tag for a precinct. I feel confident it will be counted and counted exactly once.
Thank you for the comments about clearing the rolls of persons who no longer vote. Oregon and other states have been identified as having outdated rolls that need purging.
Democracy is a work in progress...We learn more about the what if's every year...