COLUMBUS, Ga. (WRBL) — Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and his team were in Columbus Wednesday doing a spot check of Muscogee County election equipment.

The Secretary of State’s Office is doing this in all 159 Georgia Counties.

The check of the voting equipment in Muscogee County appeared to be routine. Now, the Muscogee County Elections and Registrations Office will await a report card from the Secretary of State’s Office.

In this election off year before the 2024 presidential election, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office is inspecting the voting apparatus.

Muscogee County becomes about the 40th of the state’s 159 counties to go through the process. Wednesday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of his staff were at the local election office.

Here’s what the lead inspector, Chris Bellew, had to say.

“We have not found any devices that are not what we are expecting them to be,” Bellew said. “We may find the occasional bad roller or cracked screen. Those are things that can be repaired relatively easily. But all of the applications themselves have been good.”

And the Muscogee County machines appear secure.

“The counties do make a point of sealing every point of entry on the device,” Bellew said. “So, when we do our tests, we have to break those seals to get into the actual device itself. Everything we have done so far has been very secure because it’s sealed and locked and kept in these offices like this behind lock and key.”

Two members of the Muscogee County Board of Elections and Registrations watched the process.

“We welcome him coming today,” said U.D. Roberts. “And we have an election in seven months. As a matter of fact, we will be mailing out ballots in five months to the military. It is great he is validating that everything is working – security is in place, too. It was good to observe it today.”

The inspection was an opportunity for Muscogee County to make a statement.

“Today, we are showing that our system works,” Linda Parker said.

Raffensperger was at the election office during the inspection and said the statewide exercise should be completed in December.

“Everyone’s passing so far,” he said. “A few counties need to work on some of that physical security. But we want every county commissioner to understand that. We want to make sure their counties are fully funded so that locks are in place and things like that. But as it relates to the equipment, everything is passed. Nothing has been tampered with. And we’re just going through that process of verifying that.”