The state Office of Elections and neighbor island county clerks simultaneously conducted a routine test of absentee mail-in ballot counting equipment Saturday in preparation for Tuesday’s election.
Lori Tomczyk, head of the state’s ballot operations section, said everything went smoothly and no glitches occurred.
"Everything is looking good and ready," she said.
Precinct ballots will be tabulated at the various voting locations on Tuesday, but mail-in absentee ballots and in-person early voting ballots are opened and counted on Election Day at county buildings in front of independent observers, state Chief Election Officer Scott Nago said, adding that the state is expecting more than 100,000 mail-in ballots from Honolulu alone.
Officials run the mail-in ballot test before each election to make sure the counting equipment is functioning and results transmitted to state headquarters in Honolulu from neighbor islands match the results that were tabulated in those counties.
Nago said the mail-in ballot test has never uncovered a major problem.
"The logic and accuracy test basically just assures that it’s working properly, but we’ve never had an issue," he said. "Any time there’s an error it’s always human error, not a machine error."
Independent observers made up of representatives from various interest groups and party members were also preparing for Tuesday during Saturday’s dry run. Nago said observers are assigned to watch over every aspect of Tuesday’s counting to make sure proper procedures are followed.
"They’re the eyes and ears of the public," he said.
Dennis Kam, chairman of the observers, said more than 40 people have signed up to help in Honolulu on Tuesday.
He said that although a manual audit team is responsible for double-checking 10 percent of precincts as routine procedure, the observers could also call an audit to count random precincts’ ballots by hand if they see something out of sorts or a race appears to be close.
"When it’s a close race, we normally like to check it as a second or third check," Kam said, adding that he expects to see some close races this year. "There’s lots of checks and balances going on here, so you’d be surprised as to how much is really done."
