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FILE - A stack of ballots wait to be processed at the El Paso County Citizens Service Center El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office at the El Paso County Citizens Service Center on Wednesday, November 2, 2016. (photo by Jerilee Bennett,The Gazette)

FILE - A stack of ballots wait to be processed at the El Paso County Citizens Service Center El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office at the El Paso County Citizens Service Center on Wednesday, November 2, 2016. (photo by Jerilee Bennett,The Gazette)

All ballot counting equipment that will be used in the El Paso County primary election on June 28 will undergo a public test to check its accuracy and integrity beginning Tuesday morning.

Residents can observe the public logic and accuracy test process from the hallway outside the Peterson counting room, No. 2203, on the second floor of the Citizens Service Center, 1675 W. Garden of the Gods Road, in Colorado Springs. The public will not be allowed inside the tabulation room, the department said in a news release.

The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office will begin the test at 10 a.m. Tuesday. Officials said the testing will run until completion, which is expected on Thursday.

The test includes three components:

• A system function test, which requires a preprinted test deck with known results. This test allows election officials to ensure a vote for every choice is tested and placed in the correct "bucket" of results. This test will verify the election was programmed correctly by county staff in the election management system.

• A hardware function test to ensure all election management system hardware that will be used in the election functions properly.

• An integrity check, the final step completed by a bipartisan testing board. The board will select a sample of at least 25 blank ballots, each to vote as they choose. The board will then hand-tally the ballots and check them against the machine count after they are tabulated. This portion of the process is "as expansive as the testing board chooses to make it in an effort to achieve the highest confidence in the (election management system) vote tabulation," the release said.

Colorado election clerks demanded Sunday those with doubts about election outcomes provide law enforcement proof of their claims of fraud.

Breeanna Jent covers El Paso County government. She previously worked as the editorial assistant for the Pikes Peak Newspapers and joined their sister paper, The Gazette, in 2020.

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