Palm Beach Co. elections office tests voting equipment at new HQ

Ahead of the Aug. 20 primary election, the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections office held its public logic and accuracy testing Friday.

Required by law before each election, the equipment testing gives the public an opportunity to observe the process election workers utilize to make sure their equipment is in top working order before the election.

This is the first time the testing is being held at Palm Beach County's new election headquarters. The state-of-the-art building features dozens of windows and TV screens surrounding the secure space where election workers test the equipment and run ballots through the machines.

Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Wendy Sartory Link says they feed tens of thousands of ballots through the machines during this testing period.

"We’re testing every method, we’re testing all the different types of machines and it’s just so people will know, 'Oh, they looked at it and we know it gave the same results we were expecting,'" she said. "It allows people to see that we know we have already tested, we know that machine is going to read that ballot if the bubble is filled in, we know it’s going to pick it up because we’ve now tested it."

Before the testing begins, a chart lays out how thousands of ballots were pre-marked. Once the ballots are counted, the results are compared to the pre-determined results to ensure they match.

Danielle Leonard, WPTV

WPTV reporter Stephanie Susskind asked Sartory Link about what results they typically see.

"Since I’ve been here since 2019 we’ve never had it not match," she replied. And today's testing was no exception.

She says the process helps provide more transparency to the public, especially during a time when misinformation spreads rapidly.

"There has been a lot of misinformation and disinformation about the status of elections. People do see things, hear things, sometimes from their neighbor but also there’s a lot of this that happens overseas," Sartory Link said. "So it’s even more important that [the public] feel comfortable and know they can come here and see for themselves because we know we are doing a great job with it, and we want them to come see it."

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Stephanie Susskind

That's what brought Mark Schneider to the Supervisor of Elections office. He represents a national non-partisan organization called Election Protection, which ensures every vote counts.

"There’s been kind of a failure of confidence in elections and I really believe if people come and observe the process and particularly if they would sign up to become poll workers themselves and understand how the process works, I believe their confidence in our elections would be restored," he said.