Hawaii’s primary election is just a week away, and on Saturday, tests were conducted to make sure the votes are counted correctly.
Official observers looked on as the Office of Elections ran logic and accuracy tests of the vote-counting system at the State Capitol, the statewide counting center on election night and where mail-in ballot will get tallied.
“The mail comes in, everything is verified to make sure the voter is who they say they are. It gets held until Election Day. On Election Day, it gets open and fed into these scanners to be read,” explained Chief Election Officer Scott Nago.
The rest of votes cast at polling places arrive on secure cards, and neighbor islands votes get transmitted by network from each island’s counting centers to the state capitol.
The Office of Elections has been working with the state Office of Enterprise Technology Services as well as the Department of Homeland Security to ensure that Hawaii’s election infrastructure is secure.
Recently, election officials tested and certified all the voting machines that will be used statewide, making sure that the machines are programmed correctly and counting votes accurately.
In regards to cybersecurity, officials say hacking would be impossible due to the state’s current systems of counting votes and “multiple layers of security protection around the elections infrastructure keep our voter registration and result posting systems safe.”
