KINGMAN – A test of the ballot tabulation equipment and programs for the July 30 Mohave County Primary Election will take place on June 27 at 9 a.m. by the Mohave County Elections Department. A separate test will also be conducted by the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office at 2:35 p.m. on that date. The location of the tests is the Mohave County Election Department, 700 W. Beale, Kingman. It will be open to the press and the public.
Essentially, this is how it will work. A test deck of 900 ballots will be utilized for the 9am. Mohave County logic and accuracy test. All candidates and ballot questions across 283 different ballots styles received a random number of votes. It took 10 Mohave County staff members over a week to mark the test deck and validate the results of the logic and accuracy test.
After ballots have been tallied utilizing all three of the high-speed ballot scanners that will be used to tabulate the actual ballots for the 2024 Primary Election, the results will be uploaded into the election management system where results will be accumulated, reports generated and then verified by members of the Republican and Democratic parties.
A second testing of the ballot tabulation equipment will occur at 2:35 p.m. that same day by members of the Arizona Secretary of State’s elections staff. Staff members will arrive and run test ballots marked by their office in the same manner described above for the Mohave County logic and accuracy test conducted earlier that same day.
The Secretary of States Office will not inform county elections offices of the results of their test. Once the testing of the county’s tabulation equipment has been completed using the test deck supplied by the Secretary of State’s Office, those test results are unsealed and made public and compared to the results of the county’s election management system results. This test, like the Mohave County test, is done in a public forum for all interested parties to observe and participate in the validation of the expected election results.
All 15 Arizona counties voting systems are thoroughly tested by each county and the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office over an eight-day period leading up to and ending the day before Early Voting begins on July 3.
The public, press and political parties are encouraged to attend and participate in the process. Mohave County staff welcomes the opportunity to address any questions from those attending concerning anything involving the elections process.
