The county rolled out the electronic poll books in the primary election.Įlectronic poll books, which are updated in real time on a closed system, resemble a tablet computer. This process is similar to the testing that took place last month on each of the nearly 800 voting machines and ballot scanners from the county's 202 precincts. The training and testing, which began last week and took about four days to complete, will hopefully ensure the poll books operate correctly on Election DayĬounty officials invited members of the media to check out the process while it was in progress, saying they wanted to provide as much transparency as possible about how the devices are made ready for action.Įach of the nearly 405 electronic poll books the county will use on Election Day is being tested. "There was a lot of time for them to do demonstrations on actual machines so that they would feel more comfortable using them," she said. She said the feedback they received from the participants was helpful and that they expressed a better understanding of the devices following the training. Weaver said the elections office also has held about 15 training sessions since the primary for poll workers focusing entirely on the electronic poll books. "We had a lot of discussion about what happened and why, and are fully prepared going into today to address those issues." "The logic and accuracy testing for the electronic poll books is always important, but even more so this year after what we experienced in the primary," she said. Weaver said the county learned some important lessons during the primary and that officials are focused on making sure similar problems don't happen again. And this time, those books will be given to judges of elections when they pick up materials before Election Day so they have them in hand should something unexpected happen. "We are checking that the signatures are downloaded onto each machine before we complete the testing," she said.īut, because of the issues that occurred in the primary, she said the election board decided to have the printed poll books at each precinct as a last resort. She said all five files are being downloaded on each device, which should ensure things run smoothly when voters show up to cast their ballots on Tuesday. Stephanie Weaver, county public relations officer, said there is 100% confidence that the electronic poll books will be working correctly this time around. The file that wasn't downloaded was the one that was needed for the poll books to display the signature. It was determined that leading up to primary day the county only downloaded four of the five data files. It was the county's responsibility to download the data and drop that data onto USB sticks to be loaded onto the electronic poll books. The data set consisted of five files the county should have downloaded from the secure site. The process of loading voter data onto the electronic poll books included pulling the data from the Pennsylvania Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors system, formatting it and loading it onto a secure portal to be downloaded by the county. And that mistake led to a chain of other problems that caused confusion and challenges at the polls. It stated that issues originated when voter signatures were not uploaded to the electronic poll books before election day. In response to those failures, the county commissioners hired a law firm to investigate the situation in an attempt to pinpoint what went wrong. However, that message did not reach every polling location. Because of the challenges the county was facing, a county judge ordered polls to remain open an extra hour.
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