Beaufort County’s voting machines are not experiencing vote-recording problems like different types of voting machines — particularly touch-screen voting machines — used in other areas of the state and nation have experienced, according to Kellie Harris Hopkins, the county’s elections director.

Beaufort County uses Optical Scan M100 voting machines, which are supplied by Elections Systems & Software, Hopkins said Saturday. Those machines are optical-scan tabulators.

“What is used in Beaufort County is a paper ballot that even without a machine can be tabulated. We can hand-count all of those. It’s an optical-scan system, just like kids take standardized tests, where (voters) fill in an oval next to the candidate of their choice candidates’ names — just like a choice on a standardized test in high school or middle school,” Hopkins said. “So, those machines are used. First, they’re never connected to the Internet. Those no way anybody could have access to any of the inner workings of that particular machine. Also, if there were issues with our machines, because we use the paper ballots, we always have those paper ballots to go back to hand count if those machines have any kind of issues whatsoever.”

The three-member board — Chairman Jay McRoy, Tom Payne and John Tate — conducted tests on the county’s voting machines Saturday to make sure they are programmed correctly and providing accurate voting data. McRoy said the board makes sure safeguards are in place to assure voters’ choices are being properly tabulated and reported.

During the past week or so, there have been reports of some voting machines, mostly, if not all, touch-screen voting machines. Such reports got the attention of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, which sent out press release on the matter last week. The state board said it is aware that some voters have contacted elections officials or advocacy groups with concerns related to touch-screen voting machines. Similar concerns were voiced in recent elections, the board noted.

“We urge all voters to carefully review their selections before casting their ballots, and to immediately report any questions or concerns to elections officials,” said Kim Westbrook Strach, executive director of the state board.

The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP wants the state board to investigate the reports.

“The North Carolina NAACP has now received reports from NC NAACP membership in at least 5 counties that, in some instances, electronic voting machines may be malfunctioning and improperly identifying a voters’ selected choice as a choice for a different candidate,” reads a press release from the NC NAACP. “Voters report that they have experienced this problem voting on ballot items that include, but are not limited to, the Presidential ballot.”

Most, if not all, touch-screen voting machines prompt voters to review their choices before casting their ballots. As done with paper ballots, voters using touch-screen machines should check their choices to safeguard accuracy before casting their ballots. On touch-screen machines, voters have the ability to review a real-time audit log that records each of their selections.