EAST LONGMEADOW – About 20 election wardens and clerks, gathered in the East Longmeadow Public Library Community Room to learn how to run East Longmeadow’s new voting machines ahead of the March 3 presidential primary.

East Longmeadow Town Clerk and Clerk of the Council Jeanne Quaglietti said a standard training is conducted once each year for a refresher, but, “this training is unique in that these are new machines.”

Roderick Amidon, a representative of LHS Associates, the maker of the equipment, went through the interior of the machines and showed each person the inner workings, which consist of a “tabulator” – a computer that records the ballot – and a four–foot by two–foot base that holds the physical ballots in various compartments.

“You can fit several thousand ballots in there if you need to,” Amidon said as he showed each person the machine’s inner workings. He answered questions from people regarding jamming, troubleshooting and power outages, in which case Amidon said there is a two–hour battery life.

The machines were purchased at the end of 2019 and the primary will be the first time they are used. In addition to the training session, an LHS Associates representative will be on hand for a public testing of the equipment and, again, on Election Day. Wardens will also have a manual to help the set up the machines and troubleshoot if issues arise.

“Ample training and support from LHS, along with the many years of experience and dedication of the election officials, will help make the Presidential Primary run smoothly,” Quaglietti said.

Voting will be done at Birchland Park Middle School, which will be furnished with one machine for each of the four precincts and a spare.

The wardens’ job will include making sure the election process goes smoothly and all votes are accounted for, including write-in votes.

Write–in votes are recorded by the machines if an oval is filled in on the write-in line, but the wardens must review the ballots in case a voter writes in a name but does not fill out the corresponding oval. Quaglietti said the process of reviewing the ballots takes between 60 and 90 minutes, depending on voter turnout.

Absentee ballots and early voting ballots are kept in a secure location, and then cast on Election Day at the polls by election officials, Quaglietti said.

“Official results from cast ballots are reported to the Associated Press and local news the night of the election after polls close.  For the presidential primary on March 3, March 7 is the last day for municipalities to report results to the [Massachusetts] Secretary of State’s office,” Quaglietti told Reminder Publishing.

The security for the machine includes two–step verification, requiring a key and a password. The units will be delivered by a police escort on the morning of the primary.

“There are many safeguards in place to ensure security in all elections at both the local and state level. The state recently launched the Election Security Partnership Program (ESP).  This is a voluntary partnership program between municipalities and the secretary's office, designed to help improve the overall election cybersecurity posture within the Commonwealth,” said Quaglietti.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin also expressed his confidence in the state’s election security in a recent interview with the State House News Service.

“I think that technology, while it has many benefits, it has a risk and the risks are obvious in some of the problems. Not just the most recent problem in Iowa,” which experienced a technology issue in which results were not transmitted to the state on time, “but problems other jurisdictions have had,” Galvin said. “Moreover, I think it instills confidence in voters to be able to look at their ballot [and] to put the ballot in the box themselves.”