Where You Can Try Out Bucks Co.'s New Voting Machines

Curious about how Bucks County's new voting machines will work? Well, you'll have a chance to try them out before Pennsylvania's primary elections in April.

The Bucks County Board of Elections announced this week that voters will have a chance to give the machines a whirl at a series of upcoming training sessions. The sessions will be at 12 locations throughout the county, starting in late February and ending in late April.

Pennsylvania's presidential primary elections are scheduled for April 28.

The sessions are designed to allow voters to see in person how the county’s new Clear Ballot voting machines operate. The system, which uses hand-marked paper ballots, was selected by the elections board on Nov. 27 and approved by the Board of Commissioners on Dec. 4.

In April 2018, all Pennsylvania counties were informed by the state that they must select new voting systems that provide a verifiable paper record before the 2020 primary.

The voter-verified paper ballot system uses ballots that do not have bar codes or QR codes. Voters will complete paper ballots by hand and feed them into a scanner. The scanner will drop them into a ballot bag and scan an image of the completed ballot.

The votes will be taken to the Board of Elections office at the end of Election Day and the scanned images will be used to tabulate results from each precinct. All tabulated and scanned images are kept in a secured database and do not touch the internet, elections officials said.

Here's the schedule for public training sessions:

• Feb. 24, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Technical High School, 610 Wistar Rd., Fairless Hills
• Feb. 25, 1-4 p.m., Quakertown Branch, Bucks County Free Library, 402 W. Mill St., Quakertown
• Feb. 26, 5-8 p.m., Bensalem Municipal Building, 2400 Byberry Rd., Bensalem
• March 3, 5-8 p.m., Sellersville Fire Department Hall, 2 N. Main St., Sellersville
• March 6, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Administration Building, 55 E. Court St., Room R110, Doylestown
• March 10, 1-4 p.m., Bensalem Municipal Building, 2400 Byberry Rd., Bensalem
• March 17, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Community College, Newtown Campus, 275 Swamp Rd., Newtown
• March 23, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Administration Building, 55 E. Court St., Doylestown
• March 30, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Ben Wilson Senior Activity Center, 580 Delmont Ave., Warminster
• April 7, 1-4 p.m., Juniper Village at Bucks County, 3200 Bensalem Blvd., Bensalem
• April 16, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Community College, Lower Bucks Campus, 1304 Veterans Highway, Bristol
• April 21, 5-8 p.m., Bucks County Community College, Perkasie Campus, One Hillendale Rd., Perkasie