Venango County election officials held a public voting machine testing Friday in the Courthouse Annex in preparation for Tuesday’s general election.
Tuesday’s ballots will feature the race for county commissioner, a few contested municipal contests and some state judge battles. A number of other candidates, both countywide and in municipalities, are running without ballot opposition.
The many signs spread out across the county along with mailings from candidates in recent weeks indicate there is a fair amount of interest in several of the races.
Then the machine was closed up and won’t be reopened until Tuesday.
The county’s high speed ballot tabulator was also tested. The scanner has three trays that the ballots were sorted into as they were scanned — one tray for the ballots filled out in an unclear way or overvoted, one for blank ballots and one for all the ballots that have been properly filled out.
The practice ballots that were cast Friday won’t be counted.
“There are two or three months of prep work that go into an election which people don’t see. We want them to see how the process works,” Bailey said.
Both Bailey and Sabrina Backer with the elections office stressed that the count of how many ballots have been cast and how many voters have voted is checked several times on election day and that the poll pads and other election equipment is not connected to the internet.
County elections office personnel, election board members county commissioner Mike Dulaney, who is not running for another term, and former county commissioner Bonnie Summers, as well as commissioner candidates Sam Breene and Matt Beith attended the test.
Spotlight races
Assistant district attorney Justin Fleeger and district judge Matthew Kirtland are on the ballot for the two Common Pleas judge seats in the county.
Both candidates crossfiled and were nominated on both party ballots in the spring primary.
Four candidates — incumbents Breene and Albert Abramovic and newcomers Beith and Ken Bryan — are vying for the three commissioner posts.
In addition, several other incumbent county row officers and incumbent district judge Patrick Lowrey are running unopposed for re-election.
There are contested races for both Oil City mayor and council, Emlenton council and Frenchcreek and Oilcreek supervisor. And late write-ins have entered the contests for a Franklin council and Cranberry supervisor seat.
In addition, both the Oil City and Franklin school board races have crowded ballots.
Polls open at 7 a.m. Tuesday and close at 8 p.m.
All mail-in or absentee ballots must be returned to the elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday.
