The Athens-Clarke County Elections Department announced on May 28 that it will conduct a Logic and Accuracy Test on all voting equipment intended for use in the upcoming June 16 General Primary / Non-Partisan General Runoff Election.
Testing is scheduled to begin at 9:00 AM on Tuesday, June 2, at the Athens-Clarke County Facilities and Landscape Management Building located at 2555 Lexington Road in Athens, Georgia. The process will continue daily from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM until all units have been tested and confirmed accurate. Political parties, news media, and members of the public are invited to observe the procedures.
According to the announcement, Georgia state law requires logic and accuracy testing before every election. The Athens-Clarke County Elections Department staff will test paper-based voting units, check-in systems, and optical scan systems used for absentee ballots. The process begins with receiving a secure election database from the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office. This database is used to create memory cards for programming voting equipment as well as producing ballots and reports.
Logic and accuracy procedures include testing voter access card creation, ballot display on screens, paper ballot printing, scanning of ballots, vote collection, and tabulation results. Units are calibrated, physically inspected, and recorded during this process; races and candidate information are visually checked on touch-screen units using voter access cards. Ballots are also reviewed for proper audio assistance features.
Once a machine passes all tests for accuracy, it is sealed and stored securely until Election Day with tightly controlled access. The department stated that both it and the Board of Elections comply with all state laws outlined in the Official Code of Georgia as well as State Election Board rules regarding testing and storage of voting equipment.
The City of Athens operates as a consolidated city-county government delivering municipal services including management of parks, facilities such as the restored Morton Theatre—which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places—and community programs across Athens-Clarke County, according to its official website.
