Westmoreland voting machines declared election-ready

Westmoreland County elections officials declared touchscreen voting machines ready for the Nov. 7 general election after a test Thursday found no problems.

Elections Bureau Director Beth Lechman and four office employees conducted the public test in a courthouse conference room to ensure that the machines accurately recorded votes.

“We want to make sure the results match, that the votes are the same on the machine and the results that are counted on our software,” Lechman said.

The test involved employees filing out absentee ballots then casting those same votes on the computer screens. Both the paper ballot and computer results were recorded and machine counted in the elections bureau.

Work crews next week will begin to shipping out about 800 computers to the county's 305 voting precincts, Lechman said.

Rich Cholodofsky is a Tribune-Review staff writer.