Putnam Election Commission Inspects Voting Machines Ahead Elections

Putnam County Election Commission inspected all 86 voting machines for tampering in preparation for the May elections on Friday.

Chair Phil Adams said that the commission goes through this protocol every election season, with one Democratic commissioner and one Republican commissioner performing the task.

“We’re just verifying that they still have a seal and that it correlates with the sheet we have,” Adams said. “When we sealed them before we wrote the machine number and the seal number on a pad and then stored them in a vault. And we’re just matching those numbers again.”

Adams said that it’s important to perform these inspections to make sure that no one has touched the machines between elections. He said that not only have they been locked in a vault, but they’ve been locked and sealed within the case. He said that with these protocols, it’s impossible to tamper with the machines without someone catching it.

Adams said that in his experience, they have not found any case to be tampered with during inspection. He said that there is a protocol to follow should they suspect an issue.

“The next thing we would do would be we would check the machine number, the count on the machine versus the last time we used it to see if there are numbers that have been added,” Adams said. “And even then, we start with that new number on voting. We run a zero tape to start it. Multiple double-checks on those every time.”

All voting machines were found to be in good shape and seals intact.