New voting machines tested ahead of absentee voting

County Clerk Linda Fritz led a demonstration of the county’s new voting equipment last week for party leaders on both sides. Randy Leinen, Democratic Party, and Chip Neiman and Roger Connett, Republican Party, observed as the new style of counting machine was tested.

Fritz, with the help of Deputy Clerk Melissa Jones, pointed out the many safety measures in place to ensure that Crook County’s election results are secure and valid. This was done using DS200 and ExpressVote machines that will be used for the 2020 Primary Election.

For example, Fritz noted that daily reports are run of votes tallied and the seals are also checked daily. The machines have also been thoroughly tested to ensure they test for under and over votes; they alert to over votes and provide the option for the voter to take their ballot back or start over, Fritz said.

“We want it to warn a person if they don’t vote for the correct number of people,” said Jones.

Ballots fed into the machine are collected in a box, from which they are removed and placed in sealed ballot bags.

Fritz also demonstrated the ADA compliant machine, which offers an audio ballot via headphones for visually impaired voters. A particular security measure for this machine, she said, is that a different set of judges is present in the counting room to the polling place, which means a ballot cannot be matched to the person who cast it.

These privacy measures also extend to absentee voting, Jones explained. When the absentee committee comes together, ballots are removed from their envelopes and the two are placed in separate piles, so that the voter cannot be identified.

With the help of election judges Diana Burian and Ann Marie Mickle, Fritz also demonstrated why multiple tallies made of the results, which include a report directly from the machine, a spreadsheet and printouts. The judges, along with Fritz and Miller, showed the process of finding the cause for a discrepancy between these tallies.

“It’s interesting to see how many different ways you can check this – it’s nice,” commented Neiman, expressing a positive reaction to the security measures surrounding Crook County’s elections.

Fritz commented that she has asked Senator Ogden Driskill to join the two Republican and two Democratic election judges on the night of the primary. As he is not on the ballot, she said, she felt it would be beneficial for the county’s representative in Cheyenne to see the process, so he is aware of its intricacies when making laws for Wyoming.

Absentee ballots were sent out last week for any voter choosing to cast their ballot ahead of time this year.