Voting machines in new, larger cases containing both the machines and the verified paper audit trail systems are pictured Oct. 23 at the Johnson County Courthouse.
Daily Journal File Photo
A proposed contract to have a local moving company deliver voting machines for Election Day is facing questions from Johnson County election officials.
The Johnson County Election Board is considering a roughly $8,400 contract to have Greenwood Moving and Storage deliver voting equipment to Election Day vote centers and pick it up. The contract is only for the delivery of voting machines for Election Day. Maintenance workers employed by Johnson County will deliver the machines needed for early voting sites, as they have in years past, said Trena McLaughlin, county clerk.
Typically, a bipartisan team of the Democratic and Republican election board members follow the delivery truck and sign off on the delivery after verifying everything is in working order. They also get signatures from the facility housing the machines, which are kept in a locked room and monitored with cameras by officials.
Officials need to hire an outside company due to the number of machines needed this election, as election officials are planning to use nearly all of the machines the county owns. Typically, county maintenance workers are tasked with delivery, but they do not have the ability to do so this election, McLaughlin said.
This is also a result of the county’s switch to larger voting machine cases, she said. The county switched to larger cases for last November’s election in a bid to make it easier for election workers to set them up.
The delivery contract was approved by the Johnson County Board of Commissioners on Monday, pending legal review. The election board also has to sign off on it, but because of questions they had, they opted to table it Tuesday until they receive more information and work out the details of the contract with the county attorney.
Among the things to be worked out is who is not allowed to deliver the machines. Inmates, or offenders enrolled at a community corrections facility, cannot deliver them, McLaughlin said.
They also have to discuss who is going to be responsible for signing off on the state forms for delivery.
Johnson County maintenance workers have agreed to be present when the voting machines are loaded onto delivery trucks by the movers. However, one outstanding question is whether the bipartisan team made of the Democratic and Republican election board members will follow the delivery trucks. Usually, there’s only one truck, but due to the number of machines and vote center locations, there will be three, McLaughlin said.
One solution preferred by McLaughlin would be to get two additional bipartisan teams to follow the other trucks. However, the bipartisan teams may not be necessary because it’s a commercial entity delivering the machines.
Under Indiana law, the county election board, a bipartisan team of at least two individuals or a commercial delivery entity contracted by the election board can deliver the machines, McLaughlin said.
Doug Lechner, the election board’s Republican representative, believed the delivery company could sign off them. However, McLaughlin was unsure if the company would want to, she said.
“I’m sure that to find someone at Grace Assembly [of God], which is a huge facility, to sign off on the paperwork, and then for them to be responsible to get that paperwork back to us, I don’t think that that’s something they’re going to want to do,” McLaughlin said.
Officials have to find someone at the vote center sites to sign off on the forms anyway, Lechner said. With the cost of the contract, the delivery company should be required to get the signatures, he said.
Kevin Service, the election board’s Democratic representative, questioned why state law would require bipartisan teams in some circumstances but not others.
“I’m kind of at a loss as to why we would have to have bipartisan teams until you get to commercial, which is people you don’t know, and it doesn’t, I guess, require a bipartisan team to be with them,” Service said.
Service later suggested Election Board Attorney Ellen Fredbeck-Ramírez look further into state law on the matter.
Other counties have used delivery companies to deliver machines, although McLaughlin was unsure of which counties at the time of Tuesday’s election board meeting. McLaughlin later said she would reach out to a county that used a delivery company before to see what security process was used.
Lechner also asked whether the commercial delivery company would be bonded or insured so that if there were an issue, they would be liable. These are questions that need to be addressed as well, Fredbeck-Ramírez said.
The voting machines are sealed, although there have been instances of the plastic ratchet seals breaking when those delivering them are not careful with them. Whenever a machine’s seal is broken, they are required to return and come back with the machine and bring a new one, Lechner said.
Lechner later asked if there was any way to get more durable seals for the machines. The county could look into getting a wire-type seal, but they recently ordered more of the seals they currently use, McLaughlin said.
The voting machine cases could possibly be double-sealed officials but this could be “going overboard,” said Amy Briggs, first deputy clerk.
Service reiterated his concerns about the state law later in the meeting. He believes the election board should require the extra teams to follow the delivery trucks as it was a security issue, he said.
“I think we just need to iron that out,” Service said.
Outside of destroying the machines, there is “basically nothing” those delivering the machines can do to alter the results from the machine, he later said.
On the forms used to verify delivery, officials have to certify that the machines remained in the control of those delivering them to the vote centers, that no one unauthorized had access to any voting system in their custody and that an individual signed off it, McLaughlin said, citing a copy of the form they used last election. There are lines line for the bi-partisan team or the election board to sign off, along with the vote center saying they received the delivery, she said.
The bipartisan teams would have a copy of the same form the election board uses to verify machine delivery. They’d follow the trucks to each stop and have the delivery teams and the facilities sign off. Election board members could sign off as well, McLaughlin said.
In Lechner’s view, there is an advantage to having the delivery company do the paperwork: efficiency. They could be slowed down if they have to wait for the election board and the bipartisan teams to sign off, he said.
The delivery company could do the paperwork, with the election board still following to verify that they are doing everything correctly, Service suggested. He felt it would be better to have a witness to the delivery in light of it being a heated election year where election security could come up, he said.
McLaughlin will work with the county attorney to ensure the board’s questions are addressed in the contract and to see if the delivery company will agree to sign the forms and have the facilities sign off the forms, she said.
If they don’t agree, then the county will “definitely have” bipartisan teams go with the delivery trucks, McLaughlin said.
