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Electronic voting machines get tested

By Duane Shimogawa - bio | email

HONOLULU (KHNL) - The new election machines got its biggest tests Saturday in Honolulu.

The multi-million dollar electronic voting machines are a first for Hawaii. On Saturday, independent groups from the various political parties got the chance to check them out.

"The importance is to enable individuals to look at the machines on their terms and be satisfied that the voting system operates and functions as they expected to," Hawaii's chief election officer Kevin Cronin said.

"People who have the skills to see how the electronic voting devices are processed and be able to certify them on behalf of the whole of the State of Hawaii, all of us as voters that these counts are being done accurately," official elections observer Elwin Spray said.

University of Hawaii at Manoa design engineer David Harris is one of these people. 

"The data is backed up extensively and just about anything you could imagine to go wrong, there is a very good chance for recovering from the problem," he said.

The people testing the machines went through the whole process of voting. They made sure nothing went wrong, but something did in one instance.

"We had somebody trip over a plug and pulled the plug out in the polls that's not a problem," Harris said. "Even when something like that happens, it doesn't cause a problem to the machine. All the data is perfectly secured inside the machine."

A machine that holds the faith of our elected officials.

The Big Island, Maui and Kauai get their chance to test the electronic voting machines next week.