Photo by Michele Newbanks The Ohio Secretary of State visited the Washington County Board of Elections Friday afternoon to discuss recent elections.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose visited the Washington County Board of Elections Friday during a series of stops around the county.

He spoke on a variety of topics including bipartisanship, voting machine fraud and post-election audits.

Post-election audits are done after every election and he is visiting boards of election to shine the light on them.

“My effort right now around the state is to shine a light on post-election audits, to make sure that Ohioans understand not only that the voting machines are tested and certified at the federal and state level and to make sure Ohioans know the voting machines are tested before every election by both Republican and Democratic experts who go through with a checklist to make sure they work,” LaRose said.

“Nothing is ever done without both parties overseeing the process.”

Each voting machine is tested by both parties before they are used on election day, he said.

The electronic version is used to tabulate results on election day.

“If you don’t have the electronic tabulation, you won’t know who won until Thanksgiving. It would take forever,” he said.

He added the voting machines are never connected to the internet.

“Period. Full stop. Never connected to the Internet. Can’t be connected to the internet. Not capable of being connected to the internet and if you’ve figured out some way to connect a voting machine to the internet, you would be committing a felony and we would prosecute you for it,” he said.

LaRose said Ohioans need to know that when they vote electronically, there is always a hard copy paper trail.

“There are two records created when you vote. There is an electronic tabulation and there’s a paper record,” he said.

Speaking of certain social media posts around election day got LaRose a little riled up on Friday.

“We saw this going on around election day this year, where someone on social media was saying to go to your polling location, turn on your phone and see if there’s wifi,” he said. “If there is, screenshot it and share it on social media.”

He said the posts were misinformed.

“Of course the library, the school, the church, the community center, that host the polling location is going to have wifi. Almost every public building worth a squat has wifi,” he said. “That doesn’t mean the voting machines are connected to it. I have wifi in my car, but my coffee cup doesn’t connect to it.”

Voting machines are not capable of connecting to wifi, LaRose said.

“Somebody finding that there’s a wifi signal at their polling location means nothing. It’s irrelevant,” he said. “We don’t want someone to sit at home and not vote because they’re afraid that their vote won’t count.”

Karen Pawloski, deputy director, said the board of elections certified the results of November’s election this week at the board office.

These results ended with a tie for the fourth member of Council in New Matamoras, she said. A coin flip determined the winner as Shane Belville for the seat, beating out Terry Dunn.

Each candidate had 72 votes, Pawloski said. Because of the tie, an official recount will be held on Wednesday at 8 a.m. at the board office, 204 Davis Ave., Marietta.

Michele Newbanks can be reached at mnewbanks@mariettatimes.com.

At a glance:

¯ Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose met with the Washington County Board of Elections Friday.

¯ He discussed recent elections and how everything done is bipartisan.

¯ He said there is a paper trail, even with electronic voting.

Source: Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.