Westmoreland County begins testing of voting machines in preparation for general election

Westmoreland County election officials Monday began the lengthy week-long process of testing all the voting machines and scanners to ensure they are operating properly before being sealed and transported to voting sites beginning seven days before the Nov. 8 election.

The tests to be conducted on all 889 voting machines and 307 scanners — one for each precinct — that are stored at the county’s warehouse along Vannear Avenue in Greensburg is nothing new, said Greg McCloskey, director of the county’s election bureau. The state’s election code requires that it be done before every primary and general election, he said.

What is new is the heightened focus on the integrity of voting machines and whether there has been voter fraud, claims repeated by former President Trump but never proven following the 2020 general election. Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has repeated Trump’s claims of voter fraud during his campaign for governor.

The testing that began Monday morning will continue all week, eight-to-10 hours a day, said Paul DeFloria, the county’s voting systems coordinator.

DeFloria was demonstrating to about 10 people how to conduct the test, running a sample ballot from Adamsburg through the voting machine and then the scanner that tabulates the vote, a process that can take about 10 minutes for each machine, he said.

McCloskey said that seals will be placed on the lock of the container holding the machine before being transported to the voting sites, then the judge of election at each precinct will record the number on the seal when it is broken. After the voting, the judge of elections places another seal on the machine.

The lone observer Monday morning was Fred Schiffer, a member of the Republican Party committee for Washington and Bell townships.

Schiffer, who is chairman of that GOP committee’s Election Integrity Subcommittee, said he wanted to see the demonstrations for himself and then report what he saw to his Republican committee meeting in October.

Schiffer said he believes elections have been conducted fairly in Westmoreland County, even in those contests where he has lost in a bid to be a township supervisor.

“A lot of people were complaining (about election fraud). I wanted to make sure that everything is being done right, here in Westmoreland County,” Schiffer said.