Kosciusko County Election Board members Bill Morton (L) and County Clerk Ann Torpy are pictured testing the voting machines with the Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail system on Monday, Oct. 3. Not pictured is member Randy Girod. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — Voting machine testing Monday, Oct. 3, by the Kosciusko County Election Board included five that will allow the voter to briefly view a verified paper audit trail known as the VVPAT.

Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail will be used during early voting, which begins Wednesday, Oct. 12, and at two of the precincts on election day, Tuesday, Nov. 8 – Heritage Park in Etna Green and at Our Lady of Guadalupe in Warsaw, according to County Clerk Ann Torpy.

Our Lady of Guadalupe replaces Center Lake Pavilion this fall because of the renovation work being done on the pavilion. All other voting locations will be similar to the May primary.

State laws changed since the May primary regarding voting machines with VVPAT systems.

“In the primary, it wasn’t required. Then a state law passed says as of July 1 we have to use at least 10% (VVPATs) in the general election this year with 100% by 2024,” Torpy explained. 

The only difference voters who use an election machine with VVPAT will notice is that they’re going to be able to see their ballot printed. 

“So what it does is, once you go in, it will print your ballot when you get to the last page and it will tell you what selections you had. If you confirm that, then you hit the red ‘cast’ button, and then it will scroll up and hide (the paper ballot) and it stores in here securely. If there’s an audit of our voting machines or a recount, we can take those (ballots)” and count them, she said. 

The ballots are on a paper roll and not an individual sheet. VVPATs give voters the paper print-outs that they want, though they can’t physically touch them or take the print-outs with them. “But it’s there and it records their vote,” she said.

If a person looking at the print-out realizes they voted for the wrong candidate, before they hit the red “cast” button, the person can go back and change their vote one time. The machine will then print the ballot corrected and print a line telling what happened so the device used to count the ballots can understand the change.

Once the red “cast” button is pushed, the vote is cast and the paper is rolled back into the machine. 

“It’s kind of like giving them their paper ballot that everyone wants, to have a paper trail. This is what this does,” Torpy said.

“In other voting systems that we reviewed, the voter just has it in their hand, that’s the only difference. The voter takes it to a scanner and scans in their ballot. And they all look the same as far as how they are printed on there. They use a ballot marking device, is what they call it, so the voter goes in and pushes their buttons and selects their candidate and then it prints out a ballot and then the voter takes the ballot to another machine and feeds it into a scanner. This just remains together, the voter doesn’t need to scan it,” she said.

Kosciusko County hasn’t received 100% of its VVPAT systems yet. The county just has 50.

“If we had all of them, we would have them out on the field on election day, but we don’t have them right now. The secretary of state has worked out an agreement – last I heard – that they will purchase these machines for all counties to be used in 2024,” Torpy said. 

Every voting machine has to have a VVPAT system by 2024. 

Voting System Technical Oversight Program (VSTOP), a program through Ball State University that works with the state, processes the certifications of the voting machines and equipment. 

“They send us a random list of numbers, so the voting machines are selected by them (to be tested). These are the machines that we have to test, and then we have to test 10% of how many VVPATs we have right now. We have 50 so we have to test five VVPATs. So those five are on the list provided by VSTOP and they have to be used on election day as well,” Torpy explained. 

A majority of the machines with VVPATs tested on Monday will be used during early voting. 

Torpy demonstrated how a person casts their vote on the machines and verifies it. 

“At the bottom, it will say ‘verify vote,’ so you hit verify and it will pull up your ballot,” she said as the paper ballot scrolled up, showing the candidates she selected. Her next choice was to “approve” or “void paper.” She voided paper and made changes and then hit verify again. At that point, she could either approve or cancel voting because a voter can only void their vote one time. If a voter cancels their vote, they have to start all over again and the precinct election board has to get involved with that. 

Once a voter approves their selection and hits the red cast button, the process is complete.

There are a number of write-in candidates for the Nov. 8 election. Torpy also demonstrated how a person could write-in a candidate on the machines for the upcoming election. When the ballot was printed, the name showed up just like any other candidate. The Election Board has to hand count the write-in candidates. The state provides the local election boards with guidelines on write-in candidates.

After testing the machines Monday morning, they tallied the results to confirm they were tallied correctly. A test deck was prepared in advance to make sure the results were correct. 

Like the primary, vote centers will be used again in the general election. A registered voter in Kosciusko County can vote at any voting location in the county.