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Platte County election staff report machine tests; public urges removal of electronic equipment
Summary
A public commenter urged the county to remove electronic voting machines and staff described a recent test that found a small number of folded absentee ballots produced read errors on one machine but overall systems remain certified; staff plan retests and setting adjustments.
At the meeting, Jill Kaufman (Speaker 11) urged Platte County to remove electronic voting machines following release of federal documents she said revealed vulnerabilities, and she requested a public apology relating to a prior exchange with county officials.
Election staff and board members described a public test of tabulation equipment: they said machines are certified by the Election Assistance Commission and the Wyoming Secretary of State’s office, and staff recounted that a recent test found about 60 folded absentee ballots where a fold ran through a bubble and caused a reading error on the absentee machine. Staff said the same ballots run on Election Day machines triggered queries for questionable marks and produced an error-list count only on the absentee device used in that test.
Staff explained two takeaways: first, the absentee machine needs a query setting for unreadable marks so ballots with questionable marks return to a voter or are duplicated under the secretary-of-state replication rules for damaged ballots; second, the board plans to retest machines and adjust the settings used by the absentee board to query unreadable marks. Speaker 7 thanked staff for a thorough, lengthy public test.
County officials also discussed access to system logs: a county speaker said no county board member has authority under state statute to access system logs or data directly and that the secretary of state would have to coordinate through the attorney general and governor to gain broader access to those records, a limitation staff said complicates independent verification of system internals.
What’s next: staff said they will rerun tests on some machines with adjusted settings and follow secretary-of-state guidance on replication and damaged-ballot procedures; no immediate changes to certified equipment were ordered at the meeting.
