BELL COUNTY, Texas — Polling places in many Central Texas counties are set up so voters can be in and out in minutes. Despite this, election judges and party leaders said the process is extremely secure.
In Bell County, the voting process starts with the voter who is given a paper ballot that is inserted into a machine. The voter makes their selection on the machine and it returns the paper with their results afterward. The voter then scans the ballot into a separate, secure machine that both keeps the ballot and records the vote electronically.
"There is a micro-drive. Once the polls are shut down we take that micro-drive over to the tank, what we call the elections facility," Election Judge Nancy Glasscock said. "That's the most important part."
The second machine scans the ballot is also responsible for counting it and the data is saved on a removable hard drive. That hard drive is taken to the elections facility by both election judges. Once the hard drive arrives at the election office it is plugged into another machine that counts the votes.
In this system, the original paper ballots are saved as a backup. The second machine also generates a paper print out tallying the paper ballots as well.
In McLennan County, the voting machines have touch screens and have a removable hard drive. When voting ends, the entire machine is taken back to the McLennan County Elections Office. At that office, the hard drives are removed and plugged into another machine to download the votes.
McLennan County Democratic Party Chairwoman Mary Duty said the system has plenty of fail-safes.
"We don't count it until we put it in the machine, and the machine that does the counting isn't connected to the internet," Duty said.
One of the data is collected, it is sent on a secure connection to the Office of the Texas Secretary of State. This is done before the results are posted for the public to see.
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