Local News

TRIED AND TESTED: County election officials report success from voting equipment assessment

April 1, 2022

1663

128510641_web1_20220401dr-election-machine3 — The Hancock County Election Board conducted its public test of voting equipment. Thursday, March 31, 2022.

Tom Russo | Daily Reporter

GREENFIELD — The results are in.

Not for the upcoming primary election, of course, but rather the test of the equipment and process that will be used to tally the votes in the contests.

And those results? A clean bill of health, according to election officials.

The Hancock County Election Board and county election staff spent about three hours conducting the legally required public test in the Hancock County Annex’s basement Thursday afternoon.

1 of 5

The board is made up of Hancock County Clerk Lisa Lofgreen, a Republican, as well as Republican-appointed lawyer John Apple and Democratic-appointed lawyer Bob Bogigian.

Three members of the public also attended the test, including Hancock County Democratic Central Committee vice-chair Jon Sturm and former chair Randy Johnson.

Election officials and attendees completed nearly 40 ballots for the test, some even incorrectly to see if the equipment used to count the votes would catch the mistakes.

“We purposefully mismark, don’t color in the oval, color outside the oval, so that we can be sure that the machines are catching things that they should,” Lofgreen said.

Some of the ballots were completed using a machine with headphones that reads directions and candidates’ names aloud and on which selections are made using a touchscreen.

Officials tallied ballots by hand to set a baseline to correlate the results from three machines to. They fed ballots into the machines, which printed out reports of results they read from to compare to their initial hand count, and tracked down reasons for discrepancies when they arose.

Officials noted that those voting in person during early voting or on Election Day will be alerted by machines they feed their ballots into if something is amiss, and they’ll have the opportunity to remedy it.

If the machine used to count absentee ballots finds an error, however, the election board would have to examine the ballot in an attempt to determine the voter’s intent.

“We can only be as good as the input,” Apple said. “The input has to be right. If you can’t color in a circle, then the machines do the best they can, and we interpret it if we have to. If the circle is marked correctly, the machines are going to count that correctly. If it’s an X or a checkmark, then sometimes that may not get counted, but sometimes it may, and that’s just part of the machine, there’s no way to make that work 100%.”

Bogigian agreed.

“Ultimately there’s a bunch of paper in this office that if we have to, we can go through ballot by ballot by ballot and figure it out,” he said.

What message did he want voters to take from the test?

“That the system is trustworthy, that we’re very careful about it, we’re very open about it, and that they can have faith in it, despite what some people say,” Bogigian said. “It’s as reliable a process as you can make, taking into account the human factor. I want people to know there’s nobody meddling with this process.”

And it’s led by a bipartisan team effort, Apple added.

“We all get along,” he said. “We’re all here to do the same thing, and that is to conduct the election the way it says in the code, fairly, and be done with it. And if you’re not here for that, you probably shouldn’t be on the board or associate with any of the elections.”

The completion of the test ushers in the early voting that’s slated to begin in the coming days. Lofgreen said preparations for that are going well, adding that volunteers recently took part in training for the vote center at the Annex and equipment is ready to head to other vote centers when they open later this month.

The primary election has 160 different ballot styles among Hancock County voters, depending on factors like where they live, who their aspiring leaders are and whether a public question applies to them.

Important election deadlines

The voter registration deadline for the 2022 primary election is 11:59 p.m. Monday, April 4, 2022. Registration can be completed at indianavoters.in.gov and at the Hancock County Election Office located on the second floor of the Hancock County Courthouse, 9 E. Main St., Greenfield. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The deadline for submitting an application for a mail-in absentee ballot is 11:59 p.m. April 21. Applications are available at the county election office and online at hancockcoingov.org/hancock-county-indiana-election-office. They can be submitted via email to [email protected]; mailed to Election Office, 9 E. Main St., Greenfield, IN 46140; faxed to 317-477-8683; or hand delivered.

The Hancock County Election Office can be reached at 317-477-1171.

2022 PRIMARY ELECTION (MAY 3)

EARLY VOTE CENTERS:

Hancock County Annex

111 American Legion Place, Greenfield

11 a.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays April 5-29

8 a.m. to noon Monday, May 2