Clerk’s office tests accuracy of El Paso County voting equipment ahead of election
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) – Ahead of the Nov. 5 General Election, the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office is conducting a public Logic and Accuracy (L&A) test on all voting equipment that will be used.
This includes the Central Count Scanners, and Voter Service and Polling Center ballot marking devices.
The L&A test will begin at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, Oct, 3, 2024 and is expected to be completed by Tuesday, Oct. 8. The test will be held in the Peterson Counting Room at the Citizens Service Center on the second floor.
The Logic and Accuracy test consists of three components:
- System Function Test - This part of the test requires a pre-printed test deck with known results. This allows us to be confident that a vote for every choice is tested and placed in the correct "bucket" of results. This test verifies that the election was programmed correctly by county staff in the Election Management System (EMS).
- Hardware Function Test - This test ensures that all of the EMS hardware that will be used in the election functions properly. For example, powering devices on and off, checking that battery-powered devices are holding a charge and printing from the ImageCastX ballot marking devices.
- Integrity Check - The final part requires the party-balanced testing board to select a sample of a minimum of 25 blank ballots to vote as they choose. The testing board makes a hand tally of these ballots to check against the machine count after they are tabulated on a scanner of their choosing. This test is as expansive as the testing board chooses to make it in an effort to achieve the highest confidence in the EMS vote tabulation.