Necessary Checks
All equipment to be used during voting should be fully tested prior to commencement of voting to ensure that it is functioning. The range of testing to be undertaken will depend on the reliance placed on equipment for voting, but possible likely requirements would include:
- testing communications equipment--telephones, personal radios, fax machines (if supplied)--to ensure that the communication network is operating to all locations the voting station manager may need to communicate with and that the actual devices are working;
- where multiple voting is controlled by marking voters hands with ink, ensuring that any equipment needed for this, such as ink rollers and special lighting equipment, is functioning properly, and any spare equipment supplied is tested and ready for use;
- all voting compartments have been set up correctly;
- emergency power supply generators, if required, are fuelled up and ready for operation;
- where machines or computers are used for voting, ensuring that these have been correctly installed.
Each voting machine or computer terminal should be tested by processing identifiable, distinctive test ballots/cards through the machines or test transactions through computers to ensure that both the equipment and any necessary software or communications lines are fully operable.
Communications tests to and from voting stations should be to a planned schedule controlled by electoral district managers. Where communications facilities to be used for voting are not in the actual room used for voting, access availability to the premises containing the fixed line phone or other facility must be checked.
Ballot Boxes
Just prior to the commencement of voting, the ballot boxes to be put into use immediately should be displayed empty to the polling staff and any party or candidate representatives or other accredited observers present. Once they are satisfied that the boxes are empty, the boxes should be sealed with the locks, plastic tie seals, paper seals, or other materials used.
If locks or plastic tie seals are used, the numbers of the seals or locks should be recorded and any party or candidate representatives or other observers present invited to witness the record. In the absence of such observers, staff members should witness (see seal control sheet example in Return of Polling Place Officer in Charge. Australia). If locks are used, the key holes should then be sealed with a paper or other seal. If paper seals are used on ballot boxes, their numbers (if any) should be similarly noted and witnesses invited to sign across the seals. Under no circumstances should seals be then broken or ballot boxes opened until after the close of voting.
Only those ballot boxes to be used at the commencement of voting should be closed and sealed prior to the commencement of voting. If additional ballot boxes are required to be put into use during voting hours, the above routine must be undertaken immediately before they are put into use.
Where voting machines or computers are to be used to record votes, similar procedures to verify that voter count or other recording mechanisms are set to zero (or any start record number data recorded) should be undertaken, documented, and witnessed by party or candidate representatives and observers present, or in their absence, other voting station officials.
Ballot boxes, voting machines, or computers, once sealed or verified for voting, should not be removed from the voting station until after the close of voting, or the count (if held at the voting station), and then only strictly in accordance with procedures for their removal.
