The Wayne County Office of Voter Registration conducted a public test Thursday of Wayne County's two absentee ballot tabulators to ensure that the upcoming elections come off without a hitch.

A public test of the optical scan automatic tabulating equipment is required by Indiana state law to ensure accuracy in the voting system.

The Election Board and others present at the public test certified one M100 absentee ballot tabulator for use in the Nov. 4 election. Six trials were performed with six different precincts to prove that the M100 was calculating test election results accurately.

Of the two M100 machines, one did not perform to meet certification criteria.

"Am I completely comfortable with having one machine on Election Day? No," said Brian Odell, project manager for Election Systems & Software. His company is supplying the M100 absentee voting machines as well as the iVotronic voting machines that will be in precincts Nov. 4. He said that problems with the M100s are unusual.

When Odell tried to scan votes through the machine, it appeared that the machine did not recognize test ballots and did not process any test election results. The uncertified M100 will be replaced by another machine.

The M100s are under warranty and Election Systems & Services would usually send a malfunctioning machine to a technician to repair. However, because of the time constraints of the approaching elections, ES&S will send another back up machine.

"I don't run without backups," Odell said.

Because the new machine will not be publicly certified like one of the current machines, it will only be used if the current working machine begins to malfunction. If this happened during the election, the replacement M100 would have to undergo a public test like the one performed on Thursday.

"I'm going to recommend that you don't use this," Odell said to the Election Board and others present for the public test.

The M100 has some interesting features that may help out people running elections this year.

Before any absentee ballots are scanned through the M100 machine, the M100 prints out a "zeroes ballot" that proves that no votes are loaded into the machine already.

The zeroes ballot prints the name of the candidates, the number of votes and the percentage of votes each candidate received.

Election Board members must sign the test ballot results to ensure the results are accurate. A password also is required on the M100 to erase election totals.

The tabulating systems are electronic, but are not connected to the Internet. Hackers could not tamper with election results online.

Each time an absentee ballot is scanned and shows that a person has over voted or left a ballot blank, the M100 pauses and makes the person running the machine acknowledge it.

If the power goes out during the time the absentee ballots are being tabulated on Election Day, the M100s can run on battery power for an hour and a half to two hours.

The M100s also charge their own battery packs while plugged in to an electrical outlet.

If votes are folded or torn too much for the system to recognize which candidates an absentee voter chose, the Election Board could remake the ballots if absolutely necessary.

Even though one of the M100s did not function correctly, Odell has faith that the system will work fine on Election Day.

"I believe in the system or I wouldn't work with them," Odell said. "It's a work horse, it keeps taking ballots and taking ballots ... It's flexible."

Wayne County Clerk Sue Anne Lower shares this point of view.

"He's [Odell] good at what he does, I have no qualms," Lower said. "Every new step is a new step for us, too."

Workers in the Office of Voter Registration will begin counting absentee ballots after their state-mandated final mail run at about noon Nov. 4. The absentee ballots sent in through the mail will remain sealed in security envelopes until Election Day.