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Board of Elections Staff Demonstrates How It Ensures Accurate, Secure Results

With 19 days until the general election, Montgomery County Board of Elections (BOE) board and employees demonstrated Thursday just how they plan to make sure votes are counted accurately and securely.

“We never do speed at the expense of accuracy,” explained David Naimon, president of the BOE, during the demonstration at Montgomery College’s Germantown campus.

BOE Director Boris Brajkovic noted that all 2,300 voting machines are checked as is the software from the state. Information goes through encrypted lines that “can’t easily be intercepted,” he said.

“Everything gets checked and cross checked,” he said.

Workers ensure that serial numbers on voting machines and paperwork match, information is sealed and no one enters the tabulation areas unescorted.

The BOE already has begun receiving mail in ballots, which are examined to make sure they are filled out correctly and signed, but they are not counted until election day

Early voting begins Oct. 24 and runs through to Halloween. There are 14 early voting centers.

The county also has 58 drop boxes for voters to send in their mail in ballots, which also can be sent through the U.S. mail.

“The election is well underway,” Naimon said Wednesday. The county sent out 166,000 ballots, and 51,000 already have been returned, he said. The BOE will review the mail in ballots twice weekly until election day.

The BOE still needs more election judges to work at its 232 precincts. Interested residents should go to the BOE website for information.

While the BOE begins releases vote counts after the polls have closed on Nov. 5, it will not declare winners until every vote received in counted. That includes mail in ballots that are postmarked on or before election day but may not have been received at the BOE for a week or so.

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