OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) — Tens of thousands of people have already voted and even after the deadline to register passed, there was still a line wrapped around the building.
KMTV’s Molly Hudson went back to the Douglas County Election Commission Friday and got an inside look at how all these early ballots are stored and how the county is ensuring a safe and secure election process.
- Thousands and thousands of ballots are collected, stored and under constant surveillance.
- A reminder electioneering at polling places is against the law and has been that way for years.
- Other security measures include Douglas County printing its ballots and cameras everywhere.
- This year there are fire suppression systems at all 13 ballot drop boxes around the county.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Whether it's dropped off in a ballot box, mailed in or filled out in person, thousands and thousands of ballots are collected, stored and under constant surveillance.
"We take them in the office and that's where the processing begins," said Brian Kruse, Douglas County Election Commissioner.
Kruse took Molly behind locked doors to show you exactly how the process works.
"Places where we keep ballots, which are in the vault and the counting room, require a scan plus a pin pad, double authentication, so we can limit it even more as to who goes in there,” Kruse said.
Ballots are checked in and sorted then checked again for signatures.
"At the end of the day we do what we call a zero report, so those two check-ins are matched up, to make sure we had the same number from the first check-in as we did the in the second check-in, to make sure we didn't misplace a ballot," Kruse said.
These are all the ballots cast so far in Douglas County. But by law they can't be put through the tabulation machine until November 4, the day before election day, so until then, all early ballots will be secured here in the vault.
"This is our counting room," Kruse showed Molly. "These machines are never hooked to each other, or the internet, and then we have seals on all of the ports and the back of the machines," Kruse said.
Results from the machines go on military-grade thumb drives then to a secure laptop that has never been connected to the internet, compiled and burned onto an external CD hard drive.
"Then we take that CD, we put it into a different external hard drive on a computer that is connected to the outside world and then we push those results out to the public," Kruse said.
Other security measures include Douglas County printing its ballots, cameras everywhere and new this year, fire suppression systems at all 13 ballot drop boxes around the county.
"And we do not go home until our two different reports match up," Kruse said.
A reminder electioneering at polling places is against the law and has been that way for years. Kruse says that includes the blue dot and the red Nebraska gear.
