Baker County Clerk’s Office has a new ballot tally machine
By Paul Hall on Friday, May 14th, 2021 in Eastern/Southeast Oregon News Eastern/Southeast Oregon Top Stories
BAKER CITY – Election night at a County Clerk’s Office can be a stressful time, from checking ballots to make sure they are filled out properly to having the right equipment that ensures that ballots are tallied accurately. Over the years, like all things, machines wear out and need to be replaced. This is true for the Baker County Tally Machine as well, which after approximately 13 years was replaced recently.
Earlier this week members of local media were invited by Stefanie Kirby, County Clerk for Baker County to not only see the new machine but to assist with the certification of Tally Machine. What the means is that “test” ballots are run through the machine and hand verified for 100% accuracy.
The new tally machine, an ES&S ds450 (High-Throughput Scanner and Tabulator) not only has features that allow ballots to be sorted by whether or not they are filled out properly, with an “over vote” (too many votes made on a particular measure or race) or “under vote” (no vote made on a particular measure or race) but it has security features that, according to the manufacturer, “logs all passcode attempts, whether successful or failed, to the digitally signed audit log. In addition, all user actions (such as administrative selections and open and close poll events), whether successful or failed, are written to the audit log.”
Before each election, tally machines must be certified, which is what took place this week. Test ballots are prepared, some of those show over votes, others reflect under votes and others are filled out accurately. Officials along with witnesses, run those ballots through the machine then go through each ballot one by one along with a printed report from the ES&S machine to ensure that every ballot was tallied accurately.
The new ES&S DS450 in Baker County tallied all test ballots at 100% accuracy.
Not all counties in the state of Oregon have the same tally machines, Baker County is one of 18 counties to have an ES&S Machine.
As ballots are mailed and dropped off, Election Board workers are tasked with being paired off, each person in the pair of differing political affiliations, then each ballot is opened and inspected for errors or tears that could hinder the tally machine from reading the ballot property. This is a thorough process that provides “checks and balances” that take place during each step of the process.
Kirby says that she is always open to questions from citizens regarding the election process. One common question is whether ballots are shipping off to Salem. Kirby says the answer is no, ballots remain in Baker County, they are handled and counted at the Baker County Clerk’s Office in the Baker County Courthouse.
