BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio — With early voting underway and election day around the corner, election officials are making sure voting machines aren’t making any mistakes.

What You Need To Know

  • Election officials have been testing hundreds of voting machines across the state ahead of election day 
  • In Butler County, election officials do mock votes on the machines before they're used to make sure the information is correct 
  • When the voting machines are tested, it is open to the public, some counties have different ways of testing
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Eric Corbin said every single electronic voting machine that he and his team of election officials are running in Butler County has been checked.

As the county’s Board of Elections Deputy Director, Corbin helps oversee the process of making sure each machine is counting the ballots properly.

In order to do that, he said there’s a specific way to test it. 

“When we try to vote on that machine, it is pulling up the correct issues and when we vote it we’re getting the expected results so we vote them in a pattern so when we get those expected results back, we can say OK, this machine’s functioning correctly,” said Corbin.

He said on election day, there will be about 1,200 voting machines running in Butler County. Right now he said there are close to 50 machines already counting ballots for early voting. 

After all the votes are in, he said they’ll double-check the machine’s information in an audit. 

“They (voting machines) print out a paper record, and we use that paper record during recounts and audits to verify that what the voter saw on election day when they cast their ballot is how we counted their ballot,” said Corbin.

So far he said during the early voting, there have been no voting machine issues, and they expect the same on election day.

Each county tests its voting machines differently depending on the machines they use and whether it’s a paper ballot. When election officials test voting machines, it is public.