Voting machine testing gets underway in Westmoreland
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Westmoreland election officials want assurances that each vote cast during the Republican and Democratic primaries next month are accurately recorded.
To that end, Election Bureau staff on Monday started what is expected to be a weeklong process to test each of the county’s 900 touch screen voting machines and 350 counting scanners that will be used on May 20 when voters go to the polls.
Staffers will spend the week recording test votes to mimic what voters will do on Election Day. The work is meant to ensure the machines, used since 2020, are correctly calibrated to the ballots that will be used for the municipal primaries in the county’s 306 voting precincts. The testing is performed before every election.
“We have to make sure people’s votes will count and be correct,” said Election Bureau Director Scott Ross.
Republicans and Democrats next month will nominate candidates for state and county judicial seats, county row offices, township supervisors, borough councils, mayors and school boards. In all, about 1,100 names will appear on the ballots, Ross said.
One referendum question will ask voters in New Florence to allow businesses to sell alcohol within the borough. Alcohol sales are prohibited in the small town of about 600 residents, which sits along the Conemaugh River in the northeastern corner of Westmoreland County.
Election officials expect this primary election to have much less anticipation among voters than last fall’s presidential race, in which more than 83% of Westmoreland County voters cast ballots.
The county’s last municipal primary, in 2023, saw turnout reach just 25%.