Footsteps echoed through the hallways as suitcases were wheeled into their designated locations. People unzipped, took out and then helped the machines whir to life with wires. Faint chatter carried across the room, some with questions and others with idle chitchat.

Inside the Athens-Clarke County Facilities and Landscape Management Building, election officials, alongside some poll volunteers, work to prepare voting machines for tests involving logic and accuracy on Sept. 23.

 Why It’s Newsworthy: ACC election officials assessed voting machines for accuracy and logic for the 2024 presidential election. Due to increased voter confidence issues in election accuracy, one of the election officials encourages the public to attend these tests. According to the website, this process will last until every machine is tested accordingly before election day. 

The first part of the testing process involves receiving the election database from the Secretary of State’s Office for the upcoming election. This system uses the database to create memory cards, program the voting equipment and produce ballots.

Next, the memory cards are tested for proper voter access card creation, ballot display on the screen, paper ballot printing and scanning, vote collection and tabulation results.

Voting machine units are then calibrated, physically inspected and recorded.

Lisa McGlaun, an elections assistant for the Elections Office, wanders between the testing location and her office throughout the morning. McGlaun started as a poll worker in 2018. A year later, she moved into her current position.

The first presidential election she worked for was the 2020 general election.

So that was a baptism of fire,” McGlaun said.

A forefront issue is voter confidence. Around 40% of voters are not confident that elections are conducted fairly and accurately — a significant jump from the 30% of voters who were not confident with the election vote count in 2018.

“I would love if more of the public would come to view logic and accuracy testing,” McGlaun said. “We’re all just here to make sure that all of our friends and neighbors can vote.”

Jaxon Meeks is a senior majoring in journalism at the University of Georgia.