Lee County puts new voting machines to the test

Published: Updated:

It took over three hours Wednesday morning to test the new voter tabulator machines as Lee County residents watched on.

The new machines will be used in the presidential primary election in Lee County.

“We get it; everybody wants this to be perfect. Unfortunately, there’s humans involved, there’s machines involved,” said Devin George, a Lee County judge and Chairwoman of the canvassing board in Lee County.

Many Lee County voters watched the process before being able to voice their concerns.

One Lee County voter asked about the use of paper ballots and if there was a possibility of voter fraud from mail-in ballots.

Tommy Doyle, the supervisor of elections, addressed the concern.

“You can’t just make up a ballot; it has to have the proper coding and timing tracks on it,” said Doyle, “but we do have a QR code that tells us the ballot style, and every vote by mail-ballot has that on it.”

One former poll worker even questioned the previous election’s results after she said a tabulator malfunctioned and was replaced.

Faith Enes, Deputy Registrar for the Lee County Elections office, reassured that all votes are counted.

“Sometimes something happens with a tabulator that it has to be swapped out, but those votes are still recorded,” said Enes.

According to the Canvassing Board, The logic and accuracy of the voting equipment test was successful except for one of the vote-by-mail tabulators.

The canvassing board can repair, recode and retest the machine by law.

The Canvassing Board said it will retest the machine during their meeting this Friday.

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