MANKATO — With the primary election just 25 days away, everyone’s mind is on security. That’s part of what’s led to Blue Earth County holding a public accuracy test of their elections systems.
“It is for the public, anybody who wants to come in and see election judges from different political parties feeding ballots through the machine to show that they are programmed to read the ovals that are filled in as indicated, so it’s really our way to prove to the public that the results are the will of the voters, how they actually cast their ballots on election day,” Michael Stalberger said.
Stalberger is the deputy county administrator with Blue Earth County, and is the lead election official for this year’s election, as he has been since at least 2019. He says the test went as expected, with no errors or anomalies found in the systems. That’s been the case for every test that Stalberger has held.
“We haven’t had any issues, knock on wood, but it’s really due to the hard work of the team getting it all done in advance,” he said.
Testing of the machines starts when they are programmed, as the county does a “quick test” to make sure everything has been entered correctly. Then, ballots are fed through the machine privately and checked to make sure that everything really is running the way they want it to. As soon as the “all clear” comes back from that test, the county does the test again, this time inviting the public in to see both how the systems work and the security systems in place. All-in-all, Stalberger says they probably test around 12,000 ballots; more than the expected voter turnout in this year’s primary.
“We replace ballots, we use different colored ink, we will also have ballots that are overvoted, we have cross-party ballots in the primary election, we have undervoted ballots, we have a completely blank ballot, we try to give it a ballot that isn’t for that precinct to make sure that it tests all those combinations, all those things that a voter might try to do on election day,” Stalberger said.
Some of the security systems involved in the machines include crucial components being kept behind a lock that only election judges and officials have keys to, and the systems themselves being protected by a password. It’s tests and systems like these that go a long way toward easing voters’ minds who witnessed them.
“I’m quite amazed with all the detail of the security: the locking, the unlocking continually of all different parts of the electronic machine itself, just showing you, again, over and over the security levels that are in place,” said Laura Linde, a member with the League of Women Voters who was in attendance.
Tests like these are also critical to refuting the claims of people who would want to dispute the accuracy of the machines.
“I’m seeing this with my own eyes. I’m hearing it with my own ears and I know that this is a very trustworthy system, the people that are in there working with the machines they are very well versed in what they’re doing,” April Rosendal, another LWV attendee, said. “I’m sitting here as a newbie kind of just watching, and I’m just in awe of this. But these people, they are smooth, they are fluent, they know exactly what to do every step of the way.”
With the tests having come back positive, the next step is to start the election process, with early voting and ballot counting beginning July 24.