11/02/2025
Election tabulators tested and ready
Meeting State of Idaho requirements regarding elections, Washington County’s elections deputy clerks Michelle Hagans and Stephanie Britton presented an election logic and accuracy testing demonstration to the county commissioners late Monday afternoon, Oct. 27, showcasing how the county's vote tabulators work and emphasizing the equipment’s built-in fraud protection features.
The demonstration was part of a broader effort to ensure transparency and public confidence in the electoral process and to meet state requirements legislated in 2024. Held ahead of the Nov. 2 general election, the logic and accuracy test displayed how ballot tabulators are used to securely and accurately count votes in Washington County.
Each commissioner, along with others in attendance, performed their own tests by hand feeding pre-marked test ballots into the county’s tabulator that is designated to the armory, where voters in three precincts, Eaton-Hale, West Weiser, and Mineral cast their ballots. Each tabulator is programmed for specific precincts, preventing votes from any other precincts to be counted through them.
“So how would they realistically get a ballot like that?” Hagans said. “Well, in a polling place that is sectioned off, like at the Vendome, where there is more than one tabulating machine on site, if someone goes to the wrong one, it will prevent the vote from going through it.”
Other features in the equipment recognize if a ballot has an overvote, meaning the voter selected more candidates than the number of office seats are open, such as in current city council elections. The tabulator provides the voter to select to have the ballot returned, at which time they can take it to the elections clerk to be spoiled and then start over, or they can go ahead and cast the ballot, which will result in it not being counted at all in the race.
The demonstration also provided the commissioners with a view multiple reports produced from the tabulators after the polls close, cross-referencing the total numbers of votes cast in each precinct with the totals from throughout the county. The results in each tabulator are stored to a thumb drive that is retrieved at the end of the day by a designated person from either the clerk’s or sheriff’s office as one more step to the county’s election security plan.
The main purpose of the logic and accuracy test conducted before every election is to verify that voting machines and tabulators are functioning correctly. It ensures that ballots are read accurately and that vote totals are correctly reported, as well as giving local elected officials an opportunity to ask questions.
The machines read marked paper ballots and tally votes for each candidate and race. The demonstration emphasized their precision and reliability in handling various ballot scenarios, including undervotes, overvotes, and blank ballots.
According to Hagans and Britton, less than a handful of Idaho’s counties are not using tabulators in all of their elections. They said some counties that generally use the equipment will revert to hand counting for smaller elections.
“We have chosen to always use the tabulators because consistency is the best policy,” Hagans said.
The test also illustrated the Washington County’s elections office commitment to election security. Tabulators are operated by trained personnel, and the same individuals who run the test typically manage the machines on election day, adding to the policy of continuity and consistency.
