Poll workers - I have a vote counting question

[fernweh]

We manually fill out our ballots and then feed them into a machine. I always assume that machine counted the votes as ballots fed into it.

It just now occurred to me that likely isn’t true as they would be counted real time and wouldn’t be a delay in getting results once the polls closed. Do they take them from there and have a different counting machine? How do the votes actually get counted?

[redheadbaker]

What state are you in?

[fernweh]

Michigan
redheadbaker

[redheadbaker]

Looks like your state uses three different machines, depending on your county. But your description sounds like it's the same one we use in my county in PA (Dominion).

Once you scan the ballot, the machine reads it and saves the info to a memory card -- the machine is not connected to the internet as a security measure.

At the end of the night, the judge of elections for that precinct takes the memory cards AND physical ballots to the county voter services headquarters. The info is downloaded from the memory cards and compiled.

[dale]

A poll worker told me once that the machines don't have wifi so everything gets reported after polls close.

[10outof9]

Nov 2, 2024 9:55:12 GMT -5 dale said:

A poll worker told me once that the machines don't have wifi so everything gets reported after polls close.

I’m not sure how it works with physically marked ballots, but I know with electronic ballots that get fed into the vote counting machine, there’s a usb drive in each machine that has to be physically taken to the election office after polls close.

[mrsslocombe]

Here in NYC-the ballot scanners are not connected to the Internet.

At the end of the voting day, we take the USB cards from the scanners and the poll site leader uploads them to the BOE site. Then the usb cards are sealed in an envelope and drop bag. The paper ballots are also sealed in a lock box. Both paper ballots and usb cards are taken by NYPD to the BOE. The usb cards are double checked there, I believe the paper ballots are only opened/rescanned in the event of a close race or legal challenge.

[DefenseAgainstTheDarkArts22]

MI poll worker. In addition to the memory card you also get a report at the end with the totals. So it'll say president and then totals for each + write in if there were any.

[mrsslocombe]

Nov 2, 2024 20:06:26 GMT -5 DefenseAgainstTheDarkArts22 said:

MI poll worker. In addition to the memory card you also get a report at the end with the totals. So it'll say president and then totals for each + write in if there were any.

Yes I forgot that part, the scanners also print out a summary of the results, the workers who check people in use those totals (not the candidate results, but total number of ballots) and cross check with the number of checked-in voters. But the tapes say the vote total on them.