Harris County Clerk demonstrates how to use poll machines

HOUSTON (FOX 26) - If you haven't hit the polls yet, the Harris County Clerk is demonstrating how to properly use the poll machines after some talk that the machines are changing selections.

The clerk's office says that's not what's happening. They say the machines are doing what voters tell them to do, but aren't as fast as things we've become used to like our cell phones. The software is from 2002 and the machines are from 2010.

The clerk's office says most errors occur when voters turn the dial and press buttons at the same time, confusing the machine.

"If I start spinning this dial and hitting enter, it is going to do things and you can see here it is catching up with what I told it to do," Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart said while demonstrating how to use the poll machine. "So let's do safe voting and let's vote one-handed. And then it makes it very difficult to actually do something that you don't intend."

Turning the dial moves the cursor from item to item. The enter button toggles your selection.