San Mateo County elections officials are inviting the public to observe tests of vote-counting software Tuesday in advance of the March 5 presidential primary election.
The county tests the voting system before every election through sample ballot-casting exercises to verify that votes are correctly tabulated and recorded, Chief Elections Officer Mark Church said in a press release. Church is also the county’s assessor, county clerk and recorder.
“The public and the media are welcome to observe our testing process for accuracy of the tabulation of votes,” Church said. “Logic and Accuracy testing ensures all voting equipment used in the upcoming election functions properly.”
Tests will begin at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Registration & Elections Division, 40 Tower Road, San Mateo.
One phase of testing focuses on traditional paper ballots that are tallied by scanner. The second phase focuses on votes marked on ballot marking tablets, which are printed out and run through scanners.
In addition, equipment for every Vote Center, including tablets and ballot printers, will undergo function testing.