Tuscaloosa County verifies voting machines before Nov. 5 election

Oct 29, 2024

A Sept. 24 Gallup poll showed that just under 60% of the voting public is confident the vote will be accurately cast and counted in the upcoming presidential election.

Tuscaloosa County Probate Judge Rob Robertson on Oct. 24 walked a small group of citizens through the process of certifying the voting equipment used in the county at the secure storage facility inside the Sheriff Beasor B. Walker Law Enforcement Complex in Tuscaloosa.

Tuscaloosa County has 54 polling sites and each one will be equipped with the same equipment. There are poll books that have voter registration information that is loaded onto the devices before they leave the secure facility. Those machines are used to verify voter identification. There will be one express voting machine in each polling place to accommodate people with special needs.

Each polling place will have two or more DS200 vote counting machines, which also securely store the hand-marked ballots for later counting if that becomes necessary.

"We will make sure all the machines are zeroed out, and we will run the test ballots, and work through them randomly," Roberts said of the verification process.

The test ballots used are standardized across the state and are mandated by state law so that all the voting machines can be tested using the same ballots, no matter where in the state they are located.

Robertson said the poll workers arrive at least an hour before the polls open at 7 a.m. and stay until at least an hour after they close at 7 p.m. Anyone in the polling place when the polls close will be allowed to vote even if it is after the closing hour.

Once all the votes have been cast, the process of tabulating the vote begins. Robertson said he has no way to monitor polling places remotely. None of the voting equipment is equipped with a modem or external connection of any kind in Tuscaloosa County. This helps ensure no outside entity can tamper with the voting equipment.

Robertson said he wished every state did voting with paper ballots, the way it is handled here.

"If there is a reason we need to go back, we have those hard ballots that came out of the machines. I completely agree and wish everybody did the process we do with the hard-copy paper ballot. I think that's the best thing. It's a good way to vote," Robertson said.

At the end of the day, workers close out the polling place. They post the machine printout of the voting for each machine in public view at the polling place and transfer the ballots and polling data back to the Sheriff Beasor B. Walker Law Enforcement Complex for verification. The paper ballots are stored securely in case a recount is needed, or should there be some voting irregularity that must be investigated.

"When we close the polls, everything balances out. That's what the supervisors and inspectors do with their poll workers. They account for all the ballots used and unused. They will run the machine tapes out of each machine. There are multiple copies of those. One copy is stuck to the wall at the polling place outside the door where it is publicly visible so you can see the count for that polling place," Robertson said.

"We get copies of those tapes, too. There is a data stick that is taken out of these (the DS200 machines) and that gets put in the packages which comes down here to central processing. When we get those data sticks, we have the hard copy, and we verify that the votes match. We know how many votes were cast. It matches the stick. Everything looks right. That's part of what we do in another check and balance process in central processing," Robertson said.

Robertson said the public is welcome to watch the verification process after the polls close on election night in the training auditorium at the Sheriff Beasor B. Walker Law Enforcement Complex on Investigator Dornell Cousette Street in Tuscaloosa.

Of the county's 54 polling places, the largest is the Bobby Miller Activity Center where 10,500 people are registered to vote. It is the largest polling place in Alabama. The county uses 500 trained poll workers who have to go through a training process to be certified to work the polls. This year, 20 high school students who have been nominated by their respective schools, will work as interns at polling places, observing the process and assisting voters though they will not be used in place of the poll workers.

"Our older poll workers love it. The younger folks learn from the older folks," Robertson said.

Reach Gary Cosby Jr. [email protected].