Washington Co. elections devices and software tested in Harrisburg
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A combination of devices and software the Pennsylvania Department of State ruled at the 11th hour could not be used in last November’s election in Washington County were tested last week in Harrisburg.
“The test was to see how it all interacted,” said Larry Spahr, Washington County elections director, Thursday.
“Evidently it passed the initial examination. We’re waiting for the official results.”
If the combination is approved, local elections boards will be able to encode the card that allows voters to access the touch-screen device to cast a ballot.
Washington County elections officials learned in late October state-mandated testing for a combination of the electronic pollbook, known as Express Poll – being used in the county for the first time – an additional device and computer software hadn’t taken place and there wasn’t enough time to set up the test and advertise it before Election Day.
Ian Harlow, deputy commissioner of the Department of State’s Bureau of Commissions, Elections and Legislation, said in an interview last fall that he received a belated inquiry from ES&S about the state certifying the combination. He stopped short of saying that a lack of technology testing could have invalidated the Nov. 4 election in Washington County, because election challenges are decided in court, not by the department. But a myriad of court challenges could potentially have been filed. As it turned out, no court challenges were presented.
The state has approved the use of the e-pollbook, a printer and signature pad together, Harlow said.
Elections boards in almost all of the 184 precincts used the e-pollbook to check in voters but they did not “burn” the card. They instead used a hand-held encoder in use since 2006 to produce a card that will allow the voter will insert to activate the voting machine.
E. Wesley Parry III, assistant director of elections, attended the test in Harrisburg.
“From what I could see, it went swimmingly well,” Parry said. “I saw no issues with the test at all.”
Testing of elections equipment is open to the public, and 41 pages worth of results will be posted on the Department of State website, www.dos.state.pa.us.