Hey all you wonderful frogs out there!

Just wanted to share my experience being a precinct judge/poll worker this last Tuesday in the great state of Indiana.

The TL;DR is: It was fun and I learned a lot, and made sure we had no cheating at our polling place. You should volunteer too and do your civic duty!

NOTE: I'm pretty sure you get paid to do it (I did) but don't expect to make your fortune, I think it ended up being like $10.00/hr before taxes.

Full length version - yeah, its a wall of text. sorry.

So, first off, we did have electronic voting in our county. Not much I could do about it, so it is what it is. I can sulk and not help, or I can do my best and make sure there is no cheating. I chose to help.

This was the second time I worked the polls, actually, and we had this system both times. I found out the systems were 20 years old. If used properly, the equipment is accurate and worked well. I'm sure there are ways people could have cheated with it, probably through the voter roles, but that was out of my control. I'm focusing here on the things I had control over, and the best that I can tell there was no cheating or adjustments to the system.

Equipment used: We used the MicroVote Infinity padd, with the VVPAD attachment. This is not a windows based system. I'm not actually sure what OS it used, but it most resembled a super customized version of Linux, though even then the OS didn't boot like it. It looked very unique.

This is what it looks like (not my photo):

https://verifiedvoting.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Herald_Microvote.webp

It is NOT a Dominion product that I know of, and I haven't researched it to see all the horrible problems. What I can tell you is how our system worked.

At the check-in stations there were two modified ipads with encoders. These were linked/encripted to a verizon hotspot.

"Ok, full stop/disclosure. I have IT background, but didn't need it to know this is the biggest issue with this system. I wasn't a fan of it. Please don't waste your time telling me how stupid it is to push anything election related over a connection like this, I already know and there was nothing I could do about it. I know it was secured in some fashion, but not exactly how, nor would I post it here if I knew. I will speculate in the next paragraph. Other than that, if you really want to know ask a county IT guy."

this was either VLANed or VPNed to the county courthouse over the cell network (I don't know which). the pads were sync'ed every minute or so, and could be forced synced by tapping a button.

drivers licenses were scanned (stupid barcode on the back), and the voter's registration was pulled up. If they hadn't registered, they didn't vote. Their picture was checked to match, They had to confirm their address, and they had to sign the pad. If the signature did not match, they were required to try again, instructed to use their normal signature (were not shown the signature from the registration). If it didn't match, they didn't vote. if all these criteria didn't check out, they didn't vote.

If they made it through the check-in, they picked the party primary they wanted (D or R) and their selection was logged, and a voter id number was generated, attached to their voter registration, and synced with the courthouse. They were now logged as having voted in the system. this was important as, since all precincts were connected to the courthouse, anyone from any precinct in the county could cast their vote from any voting location. It basically worked that their home voting area would be recognized by the system (example, if they were from thomas township, it would know they needed the thomas township's local voting ballot.

Once they were checked in, the station worker inserted basically a smart card into the tablet's encoder. The cards used Weigand or mifare encription, similar to access control cards. it entered their voter id number and a one time authorization. it also printed a receipt with all their voter info and their voter id number.

The card and the receipt were taken by a judge (me!) over to one of the voting stations. each station was pre-programmed with the ballot of each precinct/township/whatever area.

Whatever each person's area was supposed to have on the ballot was pre-programmed and there. anyways, we inserted the card and it unlocked the machine. It pulled the voter id from the card and matched it to a ballot for their precinct. if it matched (I cross checked the receipt), they were ready to vote! We gave basic instructions how the unit worked and left them alone to make their selections.

So cool to see, any time a voter had a question, they raised their hand. Only a judge or the precinct auditor/manager could talk to them. if the question required us to see their screen, BOTH R and D judge was required to be present. We NEVER pressed any buttons or touched the system once a ballot was loaded. If someone wanted assistence voting (blind, didn't understand a question, any given random issue) paperwork had to be signed by the voter and the inspector, and both Judges had to be there the entire time, and a couple other things which I've fogotten. Fortunately that never happened.

Anyways, back to the card. The card, once used, was blanked by the system, ready to be used again.

The system was actually pretty cool. Once they voted, their selections were printed on the vvpad/printer. The paper was in a sealed box and the paper was visible through a plexi window. It kept the paper inside the box at all times.. The paper scrolled up and showed them their voter ID, and the selections they had made. If they made a mistake it printed void on the current sellection, and printer over. Then it showed them their selections. once they approved they hit the vote button and it printed confirmation the vote was good, then scrolled up to blank paper, ready to print the next ballot.

Each station kept a running tally of votes cast on it, displayed on the lock screen. between votes. We were pretty bored, so about every hour we kept checking the tallies and adding them up. The total votes on all the machines had to add up to the number of registrations on the check-in stations. One registration per vote. We were 100% all day.

There was a R and D on the two checkin stations, they sat right next to eachother. The R and D judges were not allowed to touch the pads, and we escorted voters to the vote machines, so no checkin staff touched the vote machines.

I kept a loose mental tally and everything added up. Our precinct ended up with about 6x more votes than we anticipated (good turnout!)

When we were done we had to secure all the equipment, sign off personally that the numbers were correct and everything matched. the tallys were taken to the courthouse and the results were on the internet in easy to find PDF downloads. I was able to look up our precinct and verify the posted numbers were 100% accurate to what we reported.

NOTES: This separation of registration and vote provides a great deal of privacy per voter. Likewise, it wasn't too much separation that if a forensic review was needed, we would still be able to track down each voter, verify duplicate votes were not submitted or tallied, and that each voter voted only once. There was electronic verification they voted, where they voted, signature matching, etc. We kept the paper receipts that further verified they voted, what party, precinct, time/date stamp, voter id, etc. The machine provided a digital tally at the end, with full voting records, and we had the backup vpad printout with a full record of the votes. THEN we had a secondary full vote printout that included the tally, and we had to sign off on that and provide it with the digital tally. So two full paper records and a digital record of the vote. then a paper and digital copy of each voter registration, including their proof of registration, signature, picture id, all cross checked.

I've heard if you go into the courthouse you can get a copy of your vote with all the information, and technically I can see that being possible, though I've not tested it myself.

It was a long day, but to the best of my knowledge we had no fraud, all the numbers added up, no tampering, and everyone was pretty cheerful.

It was a great experience, and anyone who thinks all elections are rigged, I would STRONGLY encourage you to volunteer to work a poll location. Even like me, in a VERY red area where there isn't going to be problems, it was very educational, and I learned a lot, got to meet people I normally NEVER would, and I'm contributing to solve a problem rather than just griping about it on the Internet.

Ill try to answer questions, but it may not be right away, i have a super vusy weekend.

Sorry for the rambling, I'm typing this at 2 am

(only time I have to get it done).

See you all later frens.