The constitutional right of Americans to elect their local, state and federal government leaders has never been under as much scrutiny as it is today. The registered voters of Marion County are not immune to the common perception and skepticism of whether or not their votes really count, so many local residents consider going to the polls a waste of their time.
Marion County voters are not alone when it comes to questioning the validity of their election results. It’s not uncommon, especially nowadays, to hear about identity theft, ballot manipulation and other forms of voter fraud involved with many levels of elections.
According to national reports, several California voters were recently in the process of electing new state officials, but when they approached the registration sign-in area, they were told their ballots had already been cast.
To combat this kind of security breach, and to protect the integrity and value of every individual’s vote, Marion County Circuit Clerk Janette Nolan announced that local voters can rest assured that their votes will be safely, securely and accurately tabulated to reflect their ballot selections, thanks to the new state-of-the-art voting equipment that was tested this week.
Nolan said that she and the county’s election commissioners, Mike Bennett, Dist. 1; Van Lowry, Dist. 2; Dale Bracey, Dist. 3; Stacy Reagan, Dist. 4; and Jackie Hammond, Dist. 5, made a strategic plan to thoroughly test every function of the new equipment in-advance to make sure there are no surprises during the next election on Nov. 2.
“That’s our ultimate goal here today, is to test, practice and troubleshoot every possible scenario so everything will be ready on election day,” Nolan said. “Please understand that our previous system’s equipment was accurate, and we always made sure it was secure, but this new equipment adds several extra layers of security, convenience and accuracy that we didn’t have before.”
Part of what Nolan was referring to is the extra checks-and-balances elements designed into the new software that requires a complete data match between the remote ballot machines at each precinct and the hard-drive that records all of the ballot information at the central election office at the courthouse.
“This new system is remarkable. It enables us to quickly and accurately check for any inconsistencies and address them as necessary to avoid any type of anomaly,” Nolan said.
Overall, the new voting system is expected to shave some time off of getting the final (but unofficial) results during election nights, but it won't have any impact on the affidavit and absentee ballots that must still be counted separately to obtain the official election results the following day.
When voters enter their respective precincts, they’ll be checked-in at the registration tables and provided with either a standard printed ballot to mark their selections with designated pens, or, a blank electronic ballot for voters with disabilities who may require making their selections on a specialized kiosk unit that includes audio equipment for the hearing impaired.
Either way, once completed, the voters will insert their ballots into the tabulation unit which reviews their submitted ballot for any errors or discrepancies. If a race or item was skipped, or duplicated with more than one choice in a given race or item, voters now have the option of either casting their ballots as-is, or click “Return” to make any desired corrections before resubmitting.
The new voting system has several unprecedented safeguards built into the software, including filters designed to catch errors such as missed-voting (when a voter fails to make a selection on a given ballot item); and over-voting (when a voter makes multiple selections on the same ballot item). The D200 system will also detect and reject if more than one ballot is being submitted at once.
Nolan said, if there was one thing she could change, it would be to increase the participation of county voters. Although elections can often vary, depending on the particular political issues, races, competing candidates, etc., it generally depends on what the general consensus of the local population deems important enough to take the time to vote.
One of the recent local elections, that only involved races for a couple of elected offices, brought out only about 29% of the registered voters.
Even on a wide-scale full-county election, Nolan said, voter turnout has only been about 31%, which is considered good by comparison. She said she would definitely like to see more participation, especially since elections involve matters and officials that can affect everyone in the county.
