Officials test voting machines

PORTALES -- Before every election cycle, the Roosevelt County Clerk's Office tests its ballot tabulating machines to make sure everything is working correctly.

This is called the certification process.

On Thursday the clerk’s office began this testing that will continue through Friday Oct. 7, as stated in a press release. Widespread publicity prior to testing alerted the public and invited anyone interested to view the process. That publicity included a presence on social media, information published on the county website, other media coverage and letters sent to each political party chair, officials said.

The testing took place in the basement of the county courthouse, with two spectators through early Friday.

County Commissioner Tina Dixon said all counties test their machines and the testing in Roosevelt County is open to the public. The county clerk invites the public – "she likes to be transparent," Dixon said.

Roosevelt County Clerk Mandi Park is the election administrator for the county.

After testing four machines Thursday morning, Park told The News there were not any problems with them.

The county has 17 machines in total, which during an election are located at voter convenience centers and polling places, she said.

Voters mark a paper ballot and then feed the ballot into a tabulator machine that counts the vote, she said. "The vendor or brand name of the machines is Dominion."

The testing process involves running a 42-page test deck of ballots that contain, each variously, every possible outcome that a voter can vote for all questions, she said. In other words, the test ballots include all ways a voter can vote.

"The 42 page test deck is pre-marked to get a specific set of results we expect," she said. If the tabulator results match the intended result, the machine is working accurately.

Next the clerk's office sets the time and date and the clock begins to run so that when the votes are tabulated, they will reflect the date of Election Day, which is Nov. 8 this year, she said. The office then checks the battery in the machines to ensure that it is fully charged.

"Before Election Day, between now and next month, we'll do a mock election," she said. The purpose of this is to see if the machines upload the cards to the server and then to the secretary of state's office and ultimately "out to her website and to the media."

The machines are then sealed and locked up so nobody can get to them, she said. One card stays sealed in the machine for 45 days after the election and the other card goes to the county clerk's office on the night of the election.

"The machine is not connected in any way to the outside," she said. It is not connected to the internet. The clerk's office reads the memory card and reports it to the secretary of state.

"We test (the machines) because it is required by statute and we invite the public so that they can become confident with the process and the accuracy of the results," she said.

For more information, contact the County Clerk's Office at 575-356-8562 or [email protected].