Contact: Mark Church, Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder
Alternate: David Tom, Elections Manager
(Redwood City, CA) The San Mateo County Elections Office will conduct the Logic & Accuracy (L & A) testing of the eSlate Voting System in preparation for the March 8 Brisbane School District Special Election. The testing will take place at the Elections Office at 40 Tower Road in San Mateo at 9:00 a.m. on January 26.
L & A testing consists of procedures necessary to ensure that the hardware and software used in an election are working properly. The public is welcome to observe the L & A testing process.
“The L & A testing that is done before an election provides the assurance that the equipment is functioning properly and the vote count will be reliable. It is an absolutely fundamental step in the preparation of an election,” explained Mark Church, San Mateo County Chief Elections Officer & Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder.
The testing of the equipment to be used in this election will be completed in one day because the ballots are simple and comprised of a single yes/no question and not many voting machines will be required to conduct the election. The Brisbane School District consists of 4,035 registered voters who live within 8 precincts (six served by polling places and two served by mail ballots).
The L & A testing process ensures that all votes cast, whether electronic or paper, tally correctly. Regardless of the type of a ballot cast, the size of a jurisdiction or the length and complexity of a ballot, the testing of the procedures and components of the election system are the same for every election. “The important thing is that every vote is counted accurately,” explained David Tom, Election Manager.
In the March 8 Brisbane School District Special Election, voters will use one of the 24 eSlate voting machines set up at the polls or one of the two (2) eSlate voting machines in the Election’s Office reception area set up for voting during the 29-day early voting period. The two (2) Ballot Now scanners used to tally the mail ballots will also be tested.
The planned L & A testing will initially focus on the testing of the electronic voting machines. Testers will cast ballots that mirror the voting choices in this election. When the testers finish voting, the tabulation results must exactly match the test ballots that were cast and do so in all three languages (English, Spanish and Chinese).
The second portion of the L & A testing will focus on the accurate tabulation of paper ballots that are scanned by the Ballot Now machines at Tower Road. It will commence once the testing and validation of the electronic voting equipment is complete. The L & A testing of the Ballot Now scanning system ensures that all paper ballot counting processes perform accurately.
In keeping with the standard practice of the Elections Office, representatives from the political party central committees in San Mateo County have been invited to observe the process. In addition to the county central committee members, any interested member of the public may observe the L&A process, or any other process at the Elections Division.
Information about the March 8 Brisbane School District Special Election is available online at the San Mateo County Elections Division web site, www.shapethefuture.org or by calling 650.312.5222.
The press release is displayed in its original format. San Mateo County Assessor-County Clerk-Recorder & Elections website now resides at www.smcacre.org