BENTON COUNTY, ARKANSAS, Ark. — Election Day is just over a month away, but early voting starts Oct. 21 and officials in Benton County confirm their voting machines are tested and ready to go for the busy days ahead.
"We have finished testing all of our equipment, and that went really well," said Kim Dennison, Benton County Election Coordinator. "The commission will come in, certify it, and sign off on it. Next Friday at 1:00, we'll have a meeting here. Anybody's invited to come and look at the results from that and check out what we did."
Dennison said they wrapped up testing last week. It took three weeks and 12 people, four staff workers and eight poll workers, to test their 550 touch screen devices and 63 ballot boxes.
"We were making sure that all of the equipment is working exactly as it should before it goes out the door, that when you're selecting that candidate, that's what's printing on the ballot," Dennison said.
To go through the process, they manually vote for every candidate in every precinct on every device.
"We put a blank ballot in, and then we just select the precinct, and we just go in order. And so, we'll start with the top candidate for every race," Dennison said. "It is a very long process. We have 433 precincts. Every candidate is going to get a vote on every precinct."
Dennison assured voters they have a plan in place for any issues that could arise, and she said people can feel confident in casting their votes on the machines, adding that they haven't had any major issues.
"We have heard that the machine is changing my vote, which we have discovered inside of the big box where the name is, there's a little box. And sometimes people are trying to touch the little box to check it, sometimes your fingernail will catch something, and it will change your vote that way," Dennison said. "We try to recreate the problem. If we cannot recreate the problem, of course, we're going to shut down this machine and get a service tech out to look at the machine before we allow anybody else to use it."
"These are not connected to the internet in any way. There's no way of them being hacked," Dennison added. "We have to actually save that information and transfer it over to a thumb drive to be able to upload it to the website."
If you aren't registered to vote, the deadline in Arkansas is Monday, Oct. 7. The state requires you to register with an Arkansas license or a state ID. The state ID costs $5 and can verify a person's name, age, and address.
"There are so many scenarios in life where you just simply may need an ID, a formal government ID, that has your face on it and in those situations, an Arkansas ID is the is the answer," said Scott Hardin with the Department of Finance and Administration.
Hardin said you can register to vote along with obtain that state ID at any of the state's 134 revenue offices.
"If you register to vote at a revenue office, we're going to ensure that that information is transferred to the Secretary of State's office that day," Hardin said. "Just over the first few months of this year, tens of thousands of people that have taken action related to their voter records at a revenue office."
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