This section will guide you through the process of accepting electronically returned ballots. The process follows 3 steps:
1. Review Ballots | 2. Decrypt Ballots | 3. Print Ballots |
Review Ballots
From this item, you will be presented with any ballot that has been electronically returned but is still encrypted. You will click “Review” next to each item to review that submitted ballot and determine its approval for decryption.
On the review screen, you will review the return items to ensure that the voter information and ballot style are correct and ready for approval. If there is an issue with an item, you can reject that returned ballot and add adjudication notes. When complete, click “Save” to return to the list.
Once you have completed review of a batch of submitted ballots, you are ready to move on to decrypt your batch of ballots. (We strongly recommend decrypting in batches of 10 or more to ensure anonymity of the voter when ballots are shuffled.)
Decrypt Ballots
On this item, you now see that we have an item for decryption. This page will give you the approval date and the person who approved the ballot. Additionally, the type will tell you if this is a TEST or OFFICIAL ballot. Test ballots are those generated while you are simulating a voter or testing the site.
Select the check boxes beside each ballot, then click the “Decrypt Selected” button on the page.
You will now have the Decryption Confirmation screen pop up and will see the following warning if you are decrypting less than 10 ballots. Voter Privacy Warning You are attempting to decrypt less than ten (10) ballots. The fewer ballots you decrypt at any one time, the higher chance that the decrypted ballot can be tied back to the voter. Please consider waiting until you have more ballots to decrypt.
Click “Confirm and Decrypt” to process the selected ballots.
Print Ballots
Now you are ready to print decrypted ballots. You will be able to see any item that has already been printed and the information on the last time it was printed. Select the items you would like to print and click “Print Selected”.
A PDF will now download containing all the selected ballots in that batch. You are now able to print and begin your tabulation process.
