The Florida Keys’ elections supervisor announced this week that results of the Aug. 18 election will be delayed until about 10 p.m. due to the removal of landlines from all 33 polling places in the island chain.
Monroe County has long relied on those landlines to securely transmit election results via fax machine from the 33 precincts, or polling places, to the county’s main election office without any internet connections that are vulnerable to cyberattack.
Without those landlines and fax machines, results from each precinct will have to be driven to the nearest of three election offices — Key West, Marathon and Key Largo — to be counted, recorded and certified.
“As a result, for this election, every precinct will be required to securely lock and seal its voting results and maintain a documented chain of custody. The results will then be transported by secure couriers to the nearest supervisor of elections office for processing,” Monroe County Supervisor of Elections Sherri Hodies wrote in an Aug. 12 statement preparing residents for the delay.
So, what’s the plan?
The Keys Weekly emailed a dozen or so follow-up questions to Hodies, who spent more than an hour answering them and detailing her office’s security protocols.
“AT&T told me they weren’t going to be removing the landlines until 2027,” Hodies said. “But then in June they said they were already removing all the landlines and replacing them with fiber at all precincts. So my staff and I got to work putting in place one of our alternate plans, which were already in place.”
When polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 18, trained, paid poll workers (not volunteers) at each location will power down the voting machines that accept the paper ballots and store the results on encrypted memory cards. The workers will then remove the memory cards and seal them in designated bags with tamper-proof tape that covers everything with a white substance when opened. (Think of the red dye packs once used by banks to thwart bank robbers.)
The poll worker, plus a witness, both sign the seal, which is numbered, and note the time. That bag is then placed into another bag with a tamper-proof red seal that’s also signed with the time, Hodies said.
Designated couriers, including sheriff’s deputies, police officers and deputized elections staff, will then drive those sealed memory cards to the nearest elections office, where the bags will be signed for and unsealed. Hodies declined to identify any of the couriers for security reasons and their own protection.
The memory cards will then be inserted, one at a time, into tabulator machines at the elections offices, which are inspected and certified annually by state officials and are never connected to the internet, Hodies said.
“Even if someone somehow managed to get a hold of a memory card, they’re encrypted, and nothing can be taken off that card, or even viewed, without a tabulator machine,” Hodies said, adding that the machines all maintain a backup “tape” or internal record of the results separate from the memory cards. In addition, all paper ballots from each precinct’s voting machine will be transported — separately from the memory cards, with the same secure tape and chain of custody protocols — to the three elections offices, where they are kept “under lock and key” for 22 months.
“This plan is all part of our office’s security procedures, which we are required to have in place,” Hodies said. “It’s not a new procedure and has been done in the past when individual polling locations had issues with their phone line and had to drive their results to an office. But this time, we have to do it for all 33 precincts,” Hodies said.
When will we know the results?
Hodies estimated that the results for the Key West city elections will be ready around 8:30 p.m. The full countywide results for county commission, school board and other races should be ready around 10 p.m. The results of early voting and vote-by-mail will be available and posted online immediately after the polls close at 7 p.m.
She explained that the biggest delay on Aug. 18 will be due to the fact that the tabulator machines in Marathon and Key Largo have to be powered down and then back up between each precinct’s memory cards, a process that takes 10 to 15 minutes each time, Hodies said. The main Key West office is not subject to the same delays between memory cards, as they can be directly uploaded to the state’s system. The direct upload and the short drive time from Key West’s 10 precincts to the elections office on College Road will accelerate the Key West results.
“Logistically, we’ve gone through every detail, even noting that any courier driving through Big Pine at that time won’t have to slow down 35 mph, because it’ll still be light out,” she said. “And I’ve spoken with Sheriff Ramsay, who is well aware of the situation and will have deputies positioned throughout the county.”
What about the Nov. 3 general election?
The delays will be rectified for the general election on Nov. 3, as new digital modems will be in place for each precinct.
“The modems we’ve had are analog and only connected to fax machines,” she said. “The new ones use digital modem technology, run on a closed-loop system with no internet connection and will be up and running by the November general election and are certified by the Florida Division of Elections,” Hodies said.
Election Day is Tuesday, Aug. 18. Polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Visit votemonroeflkeys.gov for polling location and all other election details.
