Broward elections office gives tour of vote-counting process
FORT LAUDERDALE - On Monday, CBS News Miami answered a common question during election season: What happens to your ballot after you vote?
CBS News Miami visited the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office in Fort Lauderdale to see the process firsthand.
"It's what drives a lot of passion from the voters, absolutely," Joe Scott, the Broward County Supervisor of Elections supervisor, said.
Scott understands presidential elections come with additional scrutiny.
"A lot of people are saying things to disparage elections and make people lose trust in our election system," Scott said. "And that's what we're trying to counteract."
Scott showed CBS News Miami the entire facility. He said anyone can come and watch the process without interfering.
In the first room on the tour, election workers were sorting mail-in ballots.
"They're actually separating the ballots from the envelopes and preparing the ballots to go through the high-speed tabulation system," Scott said.
Down the hall, another machine is scanning sorted mail-in ballots. It ran periodically throughout the day.
"See around the corner that they are actually sitting at computers," said Scott, pointing to a different section in that room. "They're verifying the signatures on those envelopes to make sure that they match the signature that we have on file."
If it does not match, they text, email, send mail and call to let that person know.
"They have until 5 pm on Nov. 7 to submit a cure affidavit so that their vote can be counted," Scott said.
Past the warehouse, there were 1,000 voting machines ready to be sent out on Election Day
In another room, the county organizes and stores all the mail-in ballots and ones from in-person voting.
Those ballots go through a second scan in the clear ballot room for an audit.
"To verify that the count that we got from our tabulation system is accurate," Scott said.
The highly visible process in Broward puts voters like Mercedes Kenney at ease.
"Proven throughout various elections, every vote counts," Kenney said.
A voter named Marie said "because you have to put everything in a machine," it is accurate.
A voter who goes by Josie said: "You can see everybody is watching what you're doing and that's a good sign," added another voter who goes by Josie.
Once early voting ends Sunday the elections office will gear up for Election Tuesday to fully set up the more than 350 election voting sites.
One-third of voters in Florida have already cast their ballots through Monday afternoon, including in Broward with 173,517 by mail and 188,360 early voting.
