Two members of Hudson’s League of Women Voters (LWV) were observers at voting machine tests at the Summit County Board of Elections (BOE) on April 28. Testing the machines were IT administrators, Wayne Darlington, who is a Republican and Kevin M. Moreland, a Democrat.  All testing is  done by a bipartisan team that checks all systems at least 5 times of over 500 machines that cover all precincts.

 “The administrators spent over two hours doing test runs and answering questions,” said Charlotte Onderick of Hudson’s LWV. “We learned how  double sealing of the scanners guarantees paper ballot security.  They showed us the storage devices, which included flash drives and larger removable devices that allow the machines to operate without being connected to the internet, which makes them unable to be hacked.”

After an election, poll workers send the machines back to the Board of Elections, where the data from the storage devices are downloaded to main frame secure computers where it sorts and adds the total votes of candidates and issues. 

“We were impressed with the safety and security of the voting machines,” said Bev Dorson, Chair of Voter Services for LWV Hudson, “and the thoroughness of all explanations given by the BOE staff.”