"It helps with transparency," Michael said.
All of the tabulation machines performed correctly during Thursday's test.
According to state law, the clerk, as the elections authority, "shall publicly test the automatic Precinct Tabulation Optical Scan Technology tabulating equipment and program to determine that they will correctly detect Voting Defects and count the votes cast for all offices and on all measures."
Michael said that, in the past, the public has not shown much interest in election integrity, which she believes makes this test all the more important.
Michael said she is proud of her election staff, adding that Mark Senger, the election judge technical manager, could "tear (the machine) apart and put it back together" if needed.
Thursday's test consisted of four election judges inputting a stack of pre-filled control ballots, some of which were erroneously completed, and checking the quality of the tabulation before and after they went through the machines.
The machines to be tested were randomly chosen from four of the over 70 precincts in McLean County: Normal-14 and Normal-15, and Dawson and Martin.
Wayne Dillow, of the elections division, said the tabulating machines are essentially scanners. The voter fills out the ballot and the machine scans the filled-in ovals to tabulate which candidate receives which votes, he said.
Dillow said there are only two types of errors on a ballot: an under-vote and an over-vote. In both instances, the machines are designed to alert the voter and allow them to fix the error.
An under-vote, he said, is when a voter does not cast a vote for all the races available — for example, if three candidates are vying for two spots, but the voter only chooses one.
"That vote will still count," Dillow said.
An over-vote, on the other hand, is when a voter casts too many votes.
"If it's an over-vote, like for governor, if you voted for both the Democrat and the Republican or if you voted for all three of them that are on the ballot, if you override it to say, 'Yes, I want to do that,' that vote will not count."
Michael said this required test of the equipment is to show the public that the machines work as designed.
"If it doesn't," she said, "we find out why long before Election Day."
© 2022 The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Ill.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
