Editor’s Note: This story first appeared on Armchair Lehigh Valley and is being published on lehighvalleylive.com as part of a partnership with the website, which aims to give voters factual information in a nonpartisan way to help them make informed decisions at the polls. Armchair Lehigh Valley is run by publisher Katherine Reinhard and editor Robert H. Orenstein, two longtime journalists who formerly worked at The Morning Call in Allentown. Learn more about Armchair Lehigh Valley and subscribe here.
After completing rigorous testing of its ballot scanners and voting machines, Northampton County expects the only drama in Tuesday’s primary will involve results, not the voting process.
“The Elections Division is confident this year’s enhanced testing has prepared us for the April 23 primary election,” Election Registrar Chris Commini said in an email response Monday to questions from Armchair Lehigh Valley.
The county wants to avoid the kind of voting machine problems that occurred last November. Shortly after voting began, discrepancies were found in two judicial retention questions between what voters selected on the machine’s screen and the printout they reviewed afterward.
After learning of the problem, county officials suspended use of the machines at its 156 precincts while they determined what caused it. In the meantime, people cast votes on emergency paper ballots, with some polling place officials reporting they ran out of paper ballots.
The county and voting machine manufacturer representatives determined votes were correctly tabulated on the machines and the error appeared only on the printout. No other contest on the ballot was affected. After about two hours, voters resumed casting votes on the machines.
Machine testing before the election did not include all scenarios for the retention questions, where voters chose “yes” or “no” for the two state judges. The problem occurred when voters chose “yes” for one judge and “no” for the other; results on the printout were reversed. The voting machine test did not account for a “yes-no” possibility. If it had, the reversal of votes would have been noticed and fixed before Election Day.
Election Systems & Software, the Omaha, Nebraska, the company that manufactures the county’s ExpressVote XL machines, admitted the problem resulted from a programming error by one of its employees.
Northampton County certifies election results despite opposition from large crowd
Nearly 2,200 emergency paper ballots cast in Northampton County when voting machines weren’t used
Because of what happened with the county, the Pennsylvania Department of State this year directed counties to plan for all voting scenarios in its tests and to have a sufficient supply of emergency paper ballots available at polling places on Election Day.
Voting equipment testing, a process known as Logic & Accuracy, for the primary began April 1 at the county Government Center in Easton. The county successfully tested four ballot scanners that tabulate votes of paper ballots, which arrive via mail or drop boxes.
For the first four days of last week, election workers simulated selections on voting machines to determine if the units worked properly and tabulated sample results accurately.
Tests of the scanners and voting machines were open to the press and the public. The county allowed photo and video access to the ballot scanner test but prohibited photographs or video during the voting machine test. The county also required reporters not to disclose the warehouse location for security reasons.
Local news organizations, including Armchair Lehigh Valley and lehighvalleylive.com, asked the county to reconsider its policy prohibiting photography and video as running counter to the need for transparency in the process.
The county rejected the request, saying security concerns for election workers and the machines prompted the ban.
“In this time of threats to election officials and workers of all levels of responsibility, it is imperative that we protect their personal security to the greatest extent possible. Specifically, drawing media attention to any individual who participates in these efforts could serve to discourage ever larger numbers of volunteers we need to conduct these very important processes,” the country said in a statement.
During the voting machine tests, a dozen county workers inputted selections from marked paper ballots on the touchscreen for each machine. Workers cast votes from seven Republican ballots and 12 Democratic ballots on each of the 298 machines. There were different numbers of ballots for each party because more Democratic candidates are on the ballot, Commini explained on the first day of the testing.
Workers followed a step-by-step checklist of about 18 tasks, such as turning on the machine, casting votes, printing out and comparing results to pre-designated numbers and turning off the machines. County officials know vote totals in advance so they can compare candidate totals in each machine and print out to make sure the numbers match.
During last week’s L&A testing, Commini said eight machines had issues. For example, some machines did not have batteries and another had a battery that wouldn’t fully charge. Also the image of choices on the touchscreen moved around on another unit. The county replaced those machines during testing with ones that worked.
“The replacements were fully tested during L&A,” Commini said. The broken machines should be repaired and tested this week and will be available for backup, if needed, on Tuesday.
After voting tests were completed, the machines were prepared for the election, with supervisors doing several tasks, including clearing test data from the machine. The machines were secured by seals that will be removed before the polls open in each precinct on Election Day.
With testing completed, representatives of the political parties on Friday examined the testing documentation at each machine, providing another check that test votes were recorded properly.
Matt Munsey, chair of the Northampton County Democratic Committee, has seen other tests over the years. Regarding last week’s testing, there was “definitely a higher attention to detail.”