Although Butler County officials are not concerned about election machine hacking, that doesn’t mean steps were not taken to protect the voting process.

Shari Brewer, director of the county elections bureau, said the county already practices guidelines recommended by the Pennsylvania Department of State.

“We do this anyway,” she said.

The state advises counties to isolate any networks involved in the vote tallying. Brewer said that is not an issue.

“Our system is not networked,” she said.

The state also recommends regularly changing passwords, having backups and restricting administrative access.

Voting machine testing also is advised. Brewer said the county’s machines, 503 of which will be stationed throughout the county’s precincts, have been tested for the Nov. 8 election.

“They’re all good to go,” she said.

Brewer said all the various components involved in the county voting system, including the security code for the machines, make it difficult for them to be hacked.

“I’m not going to say things can’t be hacked, but I just don’t know how,” she said.

Brewer said the county’s electronic machines have two separate paper trails to follow, if needed.

There are end-of-day reports and a second report that can be generated the next day.

Brewer said part of the workload leading into this year’s election is dealing with voters trying to register a second time with the elections bureau.

“A lot of people don’t realize they’re already registered,” she said.

So far, 267 out of 127,366 registered voters attempted to register again.

Brewer said many of those people registered more than one way, submitting both electronic and paper forms.

Other residents may be confused about what it takes for a registration to be canceled.

A person’s voter registration is made inactive only after failing to vote in two consecutive federal elections.

Skipping primaries and local elections have no impact on voter registration status.

A person with an inactive voter registration may show up to any polling place and fill out a green affirmation form to be permitted to vote.

“They’re reactivated,” Brewer said.

After being notified about an inactive registration status, a person has five years to respond. Once the five years pass without a response, the registration is canceled.

The county also received some recommendations from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Jim Venturini, county information technology director, said that information included precautionary procedures and malware analysis.

Brewer said although the election system is not part of the county’s network, the advice would help protect elections bureau records.