Are Duval County election results accurate? Here's how voting machines are tested

In a presidential election season marked again by claims of "rigged elections" from former president Donald Trump, elections officials across the state and the nation are under the microscope.

In Florida, elections officials in all 67 counties are required by state law to give the public a chance before each election to see for themselves how election supervisors test machines to ensure they will count votes correctly. Officials say that gives voters a chance to see how the machines work and what steps are taken to secure them.

"It really takes away the misinformation that they're not accurate when you're doing it in front of the public," Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said. "They can watch and see the results."

A USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll in January found a deep divide between supporters of Trump and President Joe Biden with 52% of Trump backers saying they had no confidence the 2024 election would be accurately counted and reported while 81% of Biden's supporters were "very confident" on that score.

The Duval County machine test wasn't the most exciting 90 minutes, but a handful of members of the public and almost as many members of the media were at the election center on Thursday to watch election workers put the tabulating machines through the paces.

"We don't expect anything to go wrong," said Jacksonville attorney Leslie Jean-Bart, who is active in working for candidates and is a repeat attendee at the public testing. "But if you don't have a process like this in place, people would not have the assurance they need about how elections are fair and accurate."

At the end of the testing, Holland announced the machines were 100% correct in their tabulations.

"I can't be 99% correct on the election," Holland said. "I can't say, 'Well, we're pretty close.' It's got to be 100% percent accurate. That's what voters expect and also the candidates."

Here's how the testing is done.

Random selection picks machines for testing

The testing at the Duval County Elections Center, located at 1 Imeson Park Blvd. on the Northside, randomly selects one precinct tabulator from each of the 14 City Council districts. The elections office also tests one tabulator from an early voting site and all four of the high-speed tabulators.

The selection is basically done like picking raffle tickets from containers. As each piece of paper is drawn and opened to show the identification of the tabulator, election workers go into the big warehouse space and bring that tabulator over for the testing.

Test ballots are in the same formats that voters will get at polling sites

Each tabulator is tested using ballots that are in the same style that will be used by voters in the upcoming election. That means there will be a test ballots in different formats for Democratic, Republican and non-affiliated voters. The elections office does not know in advance which tabulators will get picked for the testing, but the office does know what the count is for the test decks.

Members of the canvassing board are on hand to monitor the process. (Jacksonville City Council member Michael Boylan along with county court judges Michael Bateh and Rhonda Peoples-Waters were on hand at the most recent testing to represent the canvassing board). After the testing is finished, the count on the tabulator is compared to the previously tallied count from the actual ballots.

Throughout the process, paper tapes from the machines record the results. At the end, each machine is reset to zero.

After testing, all tabulating machines are put under seal

After determining the tabulators have correctly counted the ballot choices, every tabulator that will be used for the August election gets put under seals so no one has access to the tabulators. The seals are not broken until the machines are taken later to the polling sites for voters to use them in casting their ballots.

Holland said if a machine arrives at a polling site with its seal broken, election workers will not use that tabulator.

If a machine gets it wrong, it's pulled for further inspection

Holland said if a machine were to get a different count than what elections officials know the results should be, election workers would pull that machine out of the test and contact the manufacturer to see what happened. Then another machine would be tested in its place.

"There is no room for error," he said.

He said he's never seen a machine fail to get the count correct during the testing.

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Actual vote-counting for election has layers of documentation

When voters go to the polls, the tabulating machines are just one way the elections office keeps a digital and paper trail. Holland said after a polling precinct closes, the elections office prints out two paper tapes with the results. The office also uses a thumb drive that captures everything from the tabulating machine that day and also uploads the results into an encrypted virtual private network that is only open for the time needed for the upload.

The office also keeps the paper ballots that voters feed into the machines and does a post-election audit by hand-counting paper ballots in randomly selected races.

Counties schedule public testing at various times

Other Jacksonville area election supervisors will be doing the state-required tests this week.

The St. Johns County test is scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday at the elections office, 4455 Ave. A in St. Augustine, Nassau County will do its test at 1 p.m. Thursday at the elections office at 96135 Nassau Place in Yulee, and Clay County will do its test at 9 a.m. Friday at the elections office in Green Cove Springs, 500 N. Orange Ave.

Testing will be done again before the November election

Florida state law requires each county election supervisor to do public testing within 25 days of the start of early voting for each election, so the same procedure will happen for the November general election when a host of races including for president will be on the ballot.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Duval County tests vote-counting machines to ensure fair, accurate election