(El Paso County, Colo. – October 9, 2024] The Clerk and Recorder’s Office conducted a public Logic and Accuracy (L&A) test on all Voting System equipment that will be used for the November 5, 2024 General Election. This test is inclusive of the Central Count Optical Scanners, and Voter Service and Polling Center ADA accessible ballot-marking devices. Each component was tested to verify that it is fully functional and free from mechanical problems and properly tabulates votes.
Members of the bipartisan Testing Board administered and confirmed nearly 30,000 voted test ballots were cast on each voting unit to ensure that it recorded votes accurately. These test ballots are counted by each voting unit and cumulated results are verified. This confirms complete accuracy throughout the entire voting and counting process. In addition, the appointed Testing Board manually voted 25 random ballots each, and then compared their hand counts to tabulated results. The L&A Certification for Voting Equipment was signed by the Testing Board and is retained as an official election record. The Certification will remain with the L&A test ballots for 25 months. All test results are cleared; the voting units are locked, sealed, and secured ready to be used in the election.
The Logic and Accuracy test consists of three components:
- System Function Test – This part of the test requires a pre-printed test deck with known results. This allows us to be confident that a vote for every choice is tested and placed in the correct “bucket” of results. This test verifies that the election was programmed correctly by county staff in the Election Management System (EMS).
- Hardware Function Test – This test ensures that all of the EMS hardware that will be used in the election functions properly. For example, powering devices on and off, checking that battery-powered devices are holding a charge and printing from the ImageCastX ballot marking devices.
- Integrity Check – The final part requires the party-balanced testing board to select a sample of a minimum of 25 blank ballots to vote as they choose. The testing board makes a hand tally of these ballots to check against the machine count after they are tabulated on a scanner of their choosing. This test is as expansive as the testing board chooses to make it in an effort to achieve the highest confidence in the EMS vote tabulation.