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Most voters don’t know much about where their ballot goes once they're done casting their vote. With voting already underway for the 2024 election, about 4,000 ballots are being processed every day at the Cache County Ballot Center.
Since the last presidential election, we have heard increasing concerns about election security, and more than one county has stepped up their ballot processing procedures to ensure that mistakes don’t happen.
Cache County is one of them. Following the 31 counts of election law violations under the previous county clerk, Bryson Behm, the current clerk has put new measures in place to crack down on security for this election.
I visited the very busy Cache County Ballot Center this week with a small group. Each of us was instructed to fill out a sign-in sheet upon arrival which included our names, the date, and the time we entered the building. The sheet also included a space for the time each individual left the building. We were informed that every section of the ballot center was monitored by cameras day and night.
Election Supervisor Michelle Stanger explained that this year they had sent out about 72,000 ballots and hired 42 seasonal hires to help with the count.
“We have got two or three people on every process that we do,” she said.
Workers first go around to ballot boxes and collect the envelopes into special bags. The ballot collections are logged when they are picked up, and then counted again once the envelopes arrive at the ballot center. They are then divided up into bundles of 100 ballots before being opened. This is done because each batch of ballots will go through three machines, and if the machine indicates that something is wrong with a ballot, it is much easier to locate in a small batch.
Behm noted that the machines undergo a public logic and accuracy test before the election to check that they are operating properly.
The first machine the ballots are sent through verifies that the signature on the envelope matches the signature on file for the voter. If the signature on the envelope is missing or does not seem to match, it is flagged and pulled from the batch.
“And that's the only time we remove a ballot — if it's challenged, and as soon as we can get it through, we get it through,” Stanger explained.
The entire process is set up so that the ballots are handled by workers as little as possible. A ballot is only checked by human eyes if the machines are unable to process something on it. And even then, ballots are always handled by at least two people at a time, with each person marking down the date, time, and their initials to show exactly where the ballot has been.
“If we have a ballot that doesn't have a signature on it, we send a letter out to the voter," Stanger said. "And we say, ‘Hey, we've got your ballot here. It doesn't have a signature on it. We want to be able to count this ballot for you, but we need to have a viable signature that we can verify to do that.’”
The owner of the envelope with the missing signature is then provided with both remote and in-person options to correct the problem.
If the signature on the envelope doesn’t seem to match, it is checked by a pair of workers. If they still decide the signature does not match, they then compare it to the past five signatures from the voter. And if they are still unsure, they contact the voter to let them know that the signature does not match what is on file.
Once the signatures are verified, the envelopes are sent through a second machine which simply opens the envelopes and removes the ballots. Every envelope has a hole punched through it, which is used to zip tie each batch of envelopes together after they are emptied. The ballot itself does not have a hole punched through it, meaning that if a ballot is missed by the machine, a zip tie will not go through the envelope. This feature ensures that not a single ballot is missed during this step.
The third and last machine is what actually tabulates the votes. Stanger noted that the machine is not connected to the internet, so the data it collects cannot be accessed externally. The machine takes a picture of the front and back of the ballot to count the votes, and will also separate out any ballots that it cannot read properly.
“I'll tell you, we get crayons," she said. "People call and say, ‘My toddler wrote all over this.’ And I'm like, 'Send it in. We don't care. The machine will kick it out.'”
And whether it’s stains from coffee rings, tire tracks, or both hate and love notes, the team has seen it all. The machine will flag these ballots and each one will be reviewed by a pair of workers — again, always in pairs. Ballots that are torn or marked in a way that the machine cannot process will be carefully replicated onto a clean, new form. The original ballot is then stapled to the remade ballot, and can easily be double checked if needed.
“If we have any discrepancies, we have to be able to explain why there is a discrepancy,” Stanger said.
And so every ballot is filed away and stored for 22 months before being destroyed.
At the end of each day the team reconciles the ballot count. This means they verify that the number of ballots picked up is also the number of ballots accounted for at the end of the process. This step ensures that any discrepancies, such as missing or extra ballots, are resolved. Behm said the completion of this step means someone gets to push the reconcile button, which sets off celebratory airhorns for the whole center to hear.
Stanger also explained that 1% of ballots are randomly selected and double checked to ensure the machines have done their job correctly. On top of this, the state will conduct a randomized audit requesting 0.5% of the ballot batches to be checked yet again.
Once this audit is complete, the results are taken to the county council to be signed off on.
And Stanger says "after they do that, then we all say, ‘I'm taking three days off!’”
