TAMPA, Florida — Election officials in Hillsborough County put their scanning and tabulating machines to the test Tuesday, less than a week before the start of early voting.
- Logic, accuracy tests considered dry run of system
- 850,000 residents in Hillsborough registered to vote
- 20 early voting sites set up across county
The logic and accuracy tests are a considered a dry run to make sure the machines are working properly. After the tests have concluded, the “test deck,” or sample ballots will be counted by hand.
“We've got a 17-inch ballot that we're dealing with here,” said Craig Latimer, Supervisor of Elections for Hillsborough County. “It's a two-page ballot and so we just put about 1,200 ballots through those machines in just a couple of minutes.”
Latimer says it’s unlikely election results will be altered by outside forces.
“We use paper ballots and you can't hack paper,” he said. “We keep those ballots for 22 months and we can always go back and look at those ballots.”
Hillsborough has 850,000 residents registered to vote in this November's election. Of that total, 7,000 signed up just before the deadline.
Twenty early voting polling sites have been set up across the county for the expected influx of voters. Early voting begins October 22.