Allegheny County officials explain process of counting votes

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - KDKA-TV took a tour with Allegheny County Elections Division, Administrative Services, Information Technology and other staffers of the elections warehouse on the North Side on Thursday.

Our cameras were able to get a sneak peek of the preparation ahead of Tuesday. At first glance, it didn't look like much. But there was a lot of action happening behind the scenes there.

For example, all of the mail-in and absentee ballots that have been sent back so far are being run through a sorting machine and checked for dates and signatures before being locked up inside a cage to be counted on Election Day.

KDKA also saw the room where the last several shipments of voting machines are sealed and awaiting their deployment.

About 1,400 voting machines are being used for this election, but the county has plenty backups.

The items needed to unlock those machines are sealed inside blue bags. They contain keys, passwords, instructions, registered voter information and two sticks that will eventually have the voting results on them along with two printed copies from the voting machine.

Both the machines and the bags are sent to one of eight regional reporting centers staged across the county and then will be picked up by poll workers.

"The election officers, when they close their polls and gather their results and gather their voted and un-voted ballots and the results, they gather this information and take it back to the same regional reporting center where they picked up," said David Voye, Elections Division manager. "We have representatives of our staff there to check in the material and they read the sticks in over the internet and that's what updates our website as to that precinct's results."

While it may be a ton of steps to the process, election officials said the process is totally secure.

"There's two sticks in the machine. So that's redundant memory. We also have the tapes that the poll workers sign. So if there was ever anything missing, we could go by those tapes. And we also have the voted ballots if you ever needed a hand recount," said Voye.

Access to the warehouse is also highly restricted. Only media, candidates or their appointed representative and sworn-in county elections workers are allowed inside. Everyone who enters must walk through the metal detector and have their bag checked. There is also security and 24-hour surveillance.