What It Takes: Counting Votes Part II

Election Day is almost here, and the poll workers are busy preparing. In my last article, I wrote about County Auditor Patty Williams and how she manages to count all the votes.

It turns out she has a fancy machine that will just about do all the counting for her! Upon sharing this with me, she also invited me to join her and the poll workers as they tested the machines.

The testing was held on Tuesday, October 27, at the Eddy County Courthouse. Five poll workers were present as well as Patty and County Treasurer Kathy Anderson.

The first thing that happened was Patty handed out a guidebook and assigned duties for election day. One worker will serve as the inspector, making sure everything goes smoothly. Three clerks will check-in voters, and two judges will hand out ballots for the correct voter precinct. Poll workers get paid 15 dollars an hour.

Eddy County has only one polling place, and it is at the Brown Memorial in New Rockford. All voters will either be voting on a ballot for Precinct 1 (which is within New Rockford city limits) or Precinct 2 (which includes rural parts of the county.) Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Eligible voters are defined as those who have U.S. citizenship, are 18 years or older, residents of North Dakota and live in the precinct they are voting for at least 30 days. Voters can be prepared by bringing a valid ID that includes name, birthday and current address. If any of this information is incorrect or out of date, a voter may vote with a set-aside ballot or return with supplemental documents by the end of the day.

Did you know that American citizens living overseas can vote by mail-in ballot or by email? While the email option isn't entirely private, it is more convenient than not voting.

Now that we have all the technical things out of the way, let's get onto the fun stuff. There were four pieces of equipment that were tested prior to the election. Each of these machines was purchased with funds provided by the legislature in 2019. The goal was to replace the 15-year-old machines that had failed in some counties.

The new equipment includes three iPad stations for clerks to scan voter identification. The equipment even allows for clerks to automatically scan an ID without having to touch it at all, which is great considering the risk of COVID-19 this year.

Another great accommodation this year, is the ExpressVote assistive device, which will be available for voters who have difficulty marking ballots. The machine itself is the size of an older computer and is equipped with a touch screen and headphones. A keypad even offers braille for voters with vision difficulties. Others who might benefit from this machine are people with neuromuscular problems that make their hands unsteady.

After a ballot has been cast, either on the ExpressVote machine or on paper, the voter takes the ballot to the DS200. This machine stands about 4-feet tall and counts the ballots as they are fed into the machine. These ballots will stay in the machine all day until the polls have closed.

After the polls close, Patty Williams appears on the scene at the polling place and starts her next shift. After all, she works at the courthouse all day, but as county auditor, Patty's job is to submit the tallied votes to the Secretary of State.

All of the ballot information is stored on a USB drive, which is sealed prior to the election. Also sealed are the paper ballots stored in the bottom of the machine, as well as a summary. Patty says they keep these paper documents for two years after a presidential election.

The final machine I learned about that day will be getting put to use on Monday when the workers convene to sort through the mail-in ballots. The DS450 will sort a stack of mail-in ballots in a matter of minutes.

Any ballots that have not arrived at the courthouse, but were postmarked by Nov. 2, will be counted by the canvassing board the Monday following the election at 10 a.m.

Poll workers will be taking additional precautions this year by wearing masks and encouraging others to do the same. All machines and surfaces will be sanitized regularly.

Before I left the training, I had to ask what the poll workers what they looked forward to on election day. Some of them have done this many years, noting memories of when Eddy County had multiple polling places. One said, "I've never done this before." Another said she enjoys watching the turnout. The last said he is always "happy the election is over, even if counting ballots."