UP election officials detail voting security measures

UPPER MICHIGAN, Mich. (WLUC) - County clerk offices across the U.P. are wrapping up preparations for the midterm election.

Marquette County Clerk Linda Talsma says there are multiple steps in making sure voting is secure. She says the election machine vendors have a lot of requirements to fill out to be eligible for use.

“They have to go through very many measures each vendor to make sure that they are up to our standards in Michigan,” Talsma said. “I have to say I feel very confident that I have always had a very good election.”

Talsma says prior to the election she runs test ballots through the tabulators to ensure any errors are caught.

“What we are doing is looking at every measure that could happen on a ballot to make sure that it is counted on a tabulator correctly,” Talsma said. “That is the biggest safety thing we do.”

Houghton County Clerk Jennifer Kelly says election inspectors verify voters are registered and help answer questions at the polls.

“The workers are the ones who help the voters, so they are crucial to our elections,” Kelly said.

To become an election inspector, individuals have to fill out an application at their local municipality and attend training from the clerk.

“We just trained many hundreds of election workers recently,” Kelly said. “I think we did eight total training.”

Absentee boards verify ballot signatures by comparing them to voters’ signatures on file.

“When you go to the voting booths and when you are doing your absentee counting boards, they are working very hard and they are not making a lot of money so thank them for their service,” Talsma said.

So far in Marquette and Houghton County combined, nine thousand absentee ballots have been turned in.