Many voters Tuesday cast their vote electronically, and while
some said the process was easy as pie, others had difficulty
trusting their vote to a machine that didn’t spit out a paper
receipt.
Many voters Tuesday cast their vote electronically, and while some said the process was easy as pie, others had difficulty trusting their vote to a machine that didn’t spit out a paper receipt.
“Actually, I try not to think too hard about what goes on in that little machine after I vote on everything,” said Gina Berrera, who voted electronically at the Las Animas Elementary polling place late Tuesday, just before polls closed. “It was easy, though. I definitely think it makes things easier and more convenient.”
So, what exactly does go on in that little machine after voters vote on everything?
To begin the e-voting process, a pollworker gives a voter a special “smart card” that has a computer chip in it. Each chip stores the entire ballot for its respective precinct.
The voter takes the computerized card to a voting booth and inserts it into the voting machine, which activates the card and prompts the ballot to appear on the screen. After the voter makes his or her selections, the votes are stored in the machine’s software.
All of the voting machines have backup batteries that would power the machines for a few hours in the case of a power outage. If the batteries die, the votes aren’t lost – they stay in the machines’ software.
Periodically throughout the voting day, election judges working at polling places add the totals from each of the machines to ensure the number of votes matches the number of voters who came to the polling place to vote.
When the polls close, election judges print out the final tallies from each machine and load them onto a master voting machine at the polling place.
Then, the master machine dials in to a computer at the precinct’s election headquarters and transfers the tallies over an encrypted connection. Additionally, pollworkers deliver to election headquarters the memory cards from the master voting machine along with a printout of the results.
