JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – At 9:30 on Tuesday morning, the Supervisor of Elections Center on Imeson Park Blvd. will begin testing the machines used in the general election to make sure they are operating correctly.
The machines will be tested for logic and accuracy and the public is invited to attend.
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The test usually takes about 2-2.5 hours to complete.
This is a process that the Supervisor of Elections is required to do by law before every election to make sure the machines are working and accurate. Jerry Holland, Duval County Supervisor of Elections, says this also makes sure that every part of the election process is transparent.
In just about 4 weeks these voting machines will be out of the Supervisor of Elections office, and in Duval County precincts helping voters cast their ballots.
"Obviously with as many precincts and early voting sites we can't test them all for the public so we randomly select some 28 and what we do is we run ballots through we know what the count should be we tabulate them and see if the count matches and if so we make sure the accuracy is there we send the equipment out to the polls for the use." says Holland.
The nearly 300 voting tabulators have been tested before today, programmed specifically for this election, with the number of candidates and races. Tuesday's test is required by Florida law to be done before every election. Holland says so far there have been no issues, but if there are, there's a plan.
"If for any reason the machine didn't function correct then we would pull it off the line, we'd make sure it wasn't used for the election and we'd send it back to the manufacturer." Holland adds that he is preparing for a general election in which he estimates 50% to 55% of the county's 552,217 active registered voters are expected to turn out. He says 51% came out during the last gubernatorial election. Holland says more voters have requested absentee ballots for this year's election, nearly 80,000 compared with about 65,000 in 2010.
"Everything is open to the public. And that's the idea to make sure the public knows the results that they are given are accurate and they are open to everyone for transparency." From machine testing to vote tabulating, Holland says everything about an election should be transparent.