Election Integrity Forefront in Minnesota’s Primary

(KNSI) – Minnesota’s primary election is coming up August 11th, and with election integrity a hot topic this year, local election officials are reassuring voters that their ballots are secure.

Laura Laudenbach, Director of License Centers and Elections for Stearns County, tells KNSI the machines are put through their paces before a ballot is ever cast.

“Before we even get to the public, though, we do a pretest where we run 8,000 or so ballots through ten different machines. So in total, it ended up being, 80,000 ballots basically through the pretest, but then for the public accuracy test, we take a sampling of each of the races and just make sure that they are counting and the machines are working correctly. Every piece of voting equipment goes through federal testing and also state testing. It has to be certified by the state of Minnesota before it can be used.”

There are many ways to keep tabs on the process.

“If you want to check your voter registration, you can do that at the Secretary of State’s website, you’ll see your sample ballot. mYou’ll find out where you’re polling place is on Election Day. You can track your absentee ballots, you can check and make sure that it just all went through OK.”

The machines are also on an encrypted network and not attached to the internet. Everything that gets voted on is also downloaded onto a card, and there is also a paper ballot to go back and look at to check against results.

Early voting continues at St. Cloud City Hall and the Stearns County Service Center in Waite Park, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

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