ST. PETERS, Mo. – The St. Charles County Election Authority is urging voters to do more than just vote.

Director of Elections Kurt Bahr has issued a call for volunteers to put voting machines to the test and show “every vote will be counted and counted right.”

With concerns in recent years about election integrity, election interference, and elections being stolen, Bahr wants to show St. Charles County voters have nothing to worry about.

More than 100 large blue lockers in the election authority storeroom in St. Peters are stocked with materials for election night. Those materials include the sealed vote counting machines. Before they’re sent out to the polling places, the machines must pass a random testing session, Thursday morning, Oct. 24, at 10 a.m.

“We invite the public to come out to watch this. We also allow the public to randomly pick which of the election machines we will test,” Bahr said. “So, instead of us saying, ‘We know these machines work,’ no, we let the public choose.”

The test is mandated by state law, he said.

So, pick a blue locker, any locker, and the sealed machine inside will count a stack of test ballots. The public can compare the count recorded on the machine’s memory stick to those actual votes on those test ballots.

“That’s the exact same process we use election day. So, that way the voters know these machines are accurately program and accurately reflect the votes cast at their precinct election day,” Bahr said. “This process is transparent and open to the public. The process works. These machines are highly accurate.”

However, given our last presidential election year experience, with monstrous voting lines during the COVID-19 pandemic and then-President Donald Trump’s subsequent allegations of voter fraud in several states, Bahr is calling on people to be part of this pre-election day vote test along with a post-election hand count audit and election verification board meeting.

“I generally trust the technology but as we all know there’s lots of opportunities in today’s world for different things to go wrong, be hacked, whatever the case is,” voter Tom Clark said. “So, I always think it’s good to test it.”

“I don’t need (the test) and I don’t think the 2020 election was stolen, (but other voters) can come out and make sure it’s on the up and up,” voter Linda Stanley said.

The test is at the St. Charles County Election Authority headquarters, 397 Turner Blvd., in St. Peters.