Elections departments in Texas are now preparing their equipment for the November election. The deadline to register for the November 8 election is October 11.
Texas Secretary of State John Scott has started releasing a series of videos on how the state and counties work during elections. He says voting systems must be certified at the federal level.
"In Texas, we have even higher standards for our voting systems which must be certified by our office in conjunction with computer science experts and legal experts at the Texas attorney general's office," Scott says. "All voting systems in Texas have to be certified by our agency in order for your county election office to purchase them and use them in any election,"
Scott says counties in Texas can buy machines from one of two manufacturers: one in Austin or one in Omaha, Nebraska.
He says voting machines are never connected to the internet.
"In fact, in order to be certified in Texas elections, they cannot even have the capability of connecting to the internet," Scott says.
Counties must test the machines three times: twice before the election and once afterward. Scott says those tests are open to the public.
Counties create test ballots, count them by hand and by machine, and compare the two to make sure they match.
"Once those exactly match and they ascertain they exactly match, that's when we deploy the equipment out," says Hays County Elections Administrator Jennifer Doinoff.
Scott's office says 17.7% of voters participated in the March primary. In the 2018 gubernatorial election, a total of 8.4 million people voted, representing 53% of those registered and 42% of the total voting age population.