Prior to rolling out the 135 ballot tabulation machines at 22 polling locations — the system needs to be tested.
In Room 318 of the Vanderburgh County Civic Center, a stack of chartreus sample ballots are ready to be used in a mock election held by the Vanderburgh County Elections Division.
Deb Oldham with the Vanderburgh County Elections Division walks the Elections Board through the process.
“You all have a ballot in front of you, and you're going to first check your zero reports that go right to the white paper,” Oldham said. One by one, the board members checked and signed the long receipt-like sheets.
This was the last overall check on the voting tabulation machines, a test for what will be done tens of thousands of times across the county during the General Election.
They verified the machines were set to ‘zero’ ballots cast, completed a mock ballot and observed that the new ballot retraction system also worked.
Clerk of the Court Dottie Thomas said this is a new state requirement.
“If someone has voted an early ballot, all the ballots are assigned a number, and that way, if someone was to pass away, they would pull their ballot before an election,” she said.
Essentially, a voter needs to be alive on election day for their early vote to count.
Thomas said her department is ready to handle all 126,000 registered voters — though only 37-percent voted in 2022. But overall this test is the last step of a larger test for “logic and accuracy.”
“It's important to have a public test to show the general public that everything has been done to the machines. The programming is done right. The logic, the accuracy is correct, and just to make sure of election integrity.”
Aside from verifying the machines were working, they handled a candidate yard sign complaint from a school board candidate who had funding language missing from posters and signs.
They also discussed vote centers and when they’d be open. For this election all early voting locations will be open on Saturday at the same time — from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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