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Key elections systems testing to take place in 2022 – Daily Montanan

['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- March']

Date: 2022-03-16 00:00:00

The elections director for the Montana Secretary of State’s Office said Wednesday that a key test county officials had called for before the state moves to a new elections management system will take place in 2022.

“If we see issues or things that need some correction, we’ll get those addressed and fixed,” said Dana Corson, elections director, in a brief update to the General Government Interim Budget Committee.

Late last year, county elections officials sounded alarm bells about the fast pace of transition into a new election management system. They said it wasn’t ready for the January 2022 launch. In December, the Secretary of State pushed the launch to January 2023 to ensure election integrity and voter confidence.

In raising concerns, county elections officials said it was important to be able to test the new system, electMT, against the old one, MT Votes, in a live election in order to ensure the vendor ironed out all the kinks in the new one. Wednesday, Corson said the Secretary of State’s Office was in the midst of preparing 15 counties to run “side by side” testing.

Before the state flips off the switch on the old system next year, a selection of counties will have tested during a schools election, the primary, and the federal general election in November, Corson said.

In a phone call after the meeting, Clerk and Recorder Rina Moore of Cascade County said “refresher training” is underway on the new system, and Cascade County is one of the counties that will run the parallel test for all three elections this year.

“There have been some glitches, but they’re working to rectify those,” Moore said. “… It seems to be working much better than it did in December.”

She said during the live elections this year, teams on each system will compare information at the end of every night in order to see how well electMT is tracking and report necessary changes. She said she’s a little nervous about the task but pleased to be able to continue making needed tweaks.

“We’re excited for the opportunity and glad that we didn’t go live this year because obviously, we’ve got a ways to go,” Moore said.

Moore also said she will provide a report to the State Administration and Veterans Affairs Committee on March 24.

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