KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Every county in Tennessee is addressing the safety and security of the 2024 presidential election, including Knox county.
Election integrity is among one of the many concerns in this year's election. This year every county in the state is mandated to conduct a public machine test, which is essentially a mock trial.
The poll workers, both Republican and Democrat, at Knoxville's Downtown West voting location were in place, the voters were ready to cast their ballots and the machines were prepared to count them on the mock election day.
Knox County Election Administrator Chris Davis said the point of the test run is to ensure voting is safe and secure.
"We make sure to clear our roles, make sure that only registered voters are registered to vote, they get one bit at the apple, they show their ID, they have a paper ballot," he said. "We do an audit after the election. Everything is bipartisan. I feel very secure about what we do."
The election commission invited the public to take part in the process. Each voter fills in a block indicating their choice in each race. Before the machine counts the total number of ballots, those same volunteers hand-count the total number of ballots. Then, the ballots are fed into the scanning machine.
"We need to test the scanner's ability to properly process all that data and spit back to us the correct results," a poll worker said.
The next step is for the volunteers to compare the results from the scanner to the results of the hand count.
"This happens almost every time we do a hand count -- we have an error. I am assuming it's in the hand count. We have to verify that," a poll worker explained.
The hand count results are reviewed again to pinpoint the discrepancy. The poll workers learn the machine count is accurate and the hand count is not.
"The problem we've always had, if we have a problem, is that we prove the fallacy of hand counting," Davis said. "Because we go back and hand count these ballots then you see, 'Oh, there is an error.' If I give you 100 ballots and you 100 ballots you are going to come up with a different number than the first time."
But for voters like Trey Davis, seeing is believing.
"I feel more confident about machine voting doing the hand count is fraught with errors," he said. "At the end of the day we all just want to vote and our vote to count."
The Heritage Foundation has ranked Tennessee number one in election integrity three years running.