Election workers gathered for a public test of election equipment on Friday.
Chief Deputy Clerk Sandy Wood said the testing takes place ahead of every election.
“We have to test these machines,” Wood said. “We have to bring in a Democrat and a Republican to do the testing to make sure that they’re counting accurately. So we do it before the election and then after the election we do the same thing to make sure that they’re still counting correctly.”
Wood said she’s been working elections for 15 years and the machines mean nowadays there are not as many late nights.
“It used to be we didn’t even have these machines,” Wood said. “Everything was just counted and since we’ve been doing this since 2006 (with) these type of machines, I don’t even really remember what it was like. When they would bring the ballots in at night, we’d have stacks and stacks of ballots and we’d have this huge machine and it would just count – click-click-click-click -and then it would jam and you’d have a problem.”
According to Wood, the Friday testing was also a training session for workers so they will be ready for the November elections. Wood said they’re estimating a 25 percent voter turnout for the upcoming August election but hope to see more.
Primary elections take place on Tuesday, August 2nd. Polls open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.