Many of us, regardless of party affiliation, believed that something wasn’t quite right about the 2020 election. Unfortunately, the 2022 elections and latest 2023 elections underscored continued issues with the electronic voting systems.  Just a few examples are the ballots that were unable to be read in AZ, results that were unable to be reconciled in Texas and GA, and PA vote “flipping” in races.  This persistent pattern has resulted in voters as well as candidates losing trust in the system.

Our legislators and election officials tell us to prove that there is fraud, but it is not our job to prove fraud; it is their job to prove there isn’t.  The potential for fraud is very real. The inherent risks of computerized or electronic systems are numerous, and you only need one to corrupt the results of an election.

We have found plenty of problems in our SC voting system. Canvassing results from the 2020 election showed that in South Carolina we had dead people voting, people voting who had moved away from the state years ago, and people voting whose address is a commercial address—none of these are legitimate votes and they cancel out our legitimate votes. In fact, in Charleston, there were enough bad data points (phantom voters) to indicate that at least 3 races could have been flipped due to the data we found. Even if the data didn’t change the results of an election, how many bad votes are we willing to tolerate?

Computers are supposed to be accurate and efficient and yet we know that accuracy of our elections continues to come into question.  Our state law (Section 7-13-1340 (C ) states that if the system is not accurate then it should no longer be used. Furthermore, our state constitution (Article II Section 1) mandates that we not count ballots in secret and yet we have a black box system that does just that. If machines are so efficient, why are certain areas in our country counting votes for weeks?

Poll observation in our ‘22 elections showed election laws not being followed as well as computers that were not secure and computer “glitches” that flipped votes. There were also candidates missing from the ballots. You can read our report here.  https://www.scsafeelections.org/poll-observer-results/

No system should be tolerated if the public doesn’t trust it. We need a transparent, accurate method that people can feel confident about. The press and elected officials lambast hand-marked, hand-counted ballots, but they haven’t truly explored this method nor has it been done in decades in this state. We are currently conducting testing of this method and also writing a whitepaper with grassroots leaders in other states.  We believe we have a great method that can be done in a timely, efficient manner and would request the opportunity to test it in pilot programs in a few precincts and counties.

It took the Netherlands 5 months to move to paper ballots. It took Argentina 4 months to make the transition to paper ballots. They had an election with 30 million people and they finished counting in one day. It can be done.  Instead of thinking of all the reasons counting hand-marked ballots won’t work to justify a $51M purchase of a system people don’t trust, let’s work on how it can be done.

In the meantime, let’s move to greater transparency for our current system by allowing the public free access to voter rolls, security logs, and cast vote records, among other things. Let’s work together to make our SC elections the model for the nation.  Let’s get rid of ERIC and manage our rolls internally.   Let’s engage citizens in a discussion of how we can innovate and reengineer this process rather than uniformly denying anything could possibly be wrong and disallowing access to public records that other states provide to their citizens.

The issues we have witnessed across our nation over the past few years are endemic.  If there are issues in other states, even with other machine manufacturers, there will be issues in South Carolina.  These systems have very similar architecture.  Denying the reality of the risks and vulnerabilities is naïve and doesn’t solve anything.

Let’s stand together for free, safe elections that are secure, transparent and verifiable.  While Act 150 was a first step, we need further work to truly secure our elections. We ask you, our state representatives, senators, and governor to work for us and help us feel more confident about our vote. Properly run elections with transparent counting of all of the votes are the key to a strong republic.  Please allow hearings on election integrity bills H.4259, H.4260, H.4261 and H.3162 and let’s bring these bills out of committee for a floor vote.

Furthermore, let’s ensure that bad election legislation is not passed, like ranked choice voting and bill S406, which calls for uploading election results early. Incremental changes such as these make our systems more vulnerable to potential bad actors.  Let’s protect the sanctity of our vote in South Carolina and restore confidence in our state’s elections. We the people are counting on you to do the right thing.

Did you know that SC voters don’t have a way to verify that their vote counted?

Your vote is not counted in public, it is counted in secret.

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee calls for a necessary “return to excellence” or in other words, a return to the simple and proven methods of precinct, ward or geographically-defined localized voting with auditable balloting procedures using paper ballots, in fair, reasonable limited time periods, using proper identification to strengthen voter confidence and to ensure that American election procedures can be a fair and open process for all to participate

Problem: Paper ballots should not be coded as the voter cannot verify. Cast Vote records which are valuable audit tools aren’t currently accessible to the public.

Solution: Bill 4261 ensures that all records such as voter rolls, Cast Vote Records (CVRs), activity and security logs, ballot reconciliation, chain of custody, incident reports and other key audit records should be available for free to the public so that they have increased confidence in the veracity of their vote by analyzing results independently. This ensures accountability of the SEC SC State Election Commission. After all, this is the people’s vote and they paid for these machines and the salaries for the agency employees. We should have access to these crucial reports to ensure that we optimize faith and trust in our elections.

Did you know that there will be a new regulation that bans drop boxes?

That is good news as it helps minimize fraud due to poor chain of custody. South Carolina doesn’t mail all registered voters ballots and they don’t use drop boxes. If we can incorporate other measures to tighten up our election process we can be the model for election integrity but we still need some work.

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee calls for elimination of temporary or ‘pop-up’ voting

locations, drop boxes, and any other voting center that are not fairly defined and bound to a designated

geographic territory and where voting locations exist, namely by precinct, so that voting is accessible equitably by legal precinct, ward or defined geographic unit in order to provide impartial access for all voters; and

Ban drop boxes via state law and have precincts to reduce size of precincts to the legislative limit of 1500 qualified electors.  There is a current regulation that addresses this by stating that counties cannot adopt drop boxes but this issue needs to be addressed in the state law.

Problem: Mail in voting has chain of custody issues and is a potential for fraud.

Solution: Minimize reasons for absentee requests.

Bill 4260 7-15-320 ameliorates this issue by removing the age 65 and older reason for requesting an absentee ballot. 

Did you know that there is a lack of trust in our election systems and lack of transparency of the black box tabulators?

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee supports the rights of counties and states that are willing and able to competently and efficiently implement voting procedures that do not require the use of machines and those that implement hand counting procedures that are fully auditable;

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee calls on state legislatures, county, and municipal

governments to pass laws and municipal codes and rules that allow for full transparent hand-counting

procedures that are planned, timely and fully observable by the public and the registered parties for

geographically defined audits and recounts;

Problem: Due to the lack of trust in our election systems and lack of transparency of the black box tabulators there is a clamoring for hand-counted, hand-marked ballots.

Solution: Move to a simpler, transparent hand-counted, hand-marked ballot system.

Bill 4260 Section 8 addresses this by instituting a pilot program but should go further by allowing hand-marked, hand-counted ballots as an option for the voter, and full observation by the public.

Laws need to be passed to allow for hand counting at the local precinct in a transparent way.

Here are some methods for hand-counting ballots  https://www.scsafeelections.org/updates/check-out-these-two-hand-count-methods-for-paper-ballots/

in addition, here is a video of a demonstration of how to hand count hand-marked ballots.

Notes from our hand count workshop

Note that if we can call each race and reconcile in 2 minutes for 50 ballots. A hundred ballots would be 4 minutes and 1000 ballots (assuming maximum approximate turnout of 70% would result in would be 40 minutes. Assuming 10 races an election this would be a total time of around 400 minutes. This would take 6.67 hours but we rounded it up to 7 and 1/2 for breaks, etc. If you split that between 2 teams of 4 people that would be 3.75 hours to hand count a race. Worse case scenario would be 4 hours tops. All of it would be completed and you would just need to total the batches and send to the county.

We recommend that these counts be videotaped so that there is full transparency and verifiability and that all ballots are reconciled at the end.

We had 2 teams of 4 work on hand counts of hand marked ballots. Two callers sit on one side of the table and two talliers across from them. The ballots were from actual 2022 midterm races from ES&S machines (Printed absentee and Expressvote ADA compliant ballots). Each team counted in 50 ballot increments one race at a time.

Here are some observations:

Times ranged from 1:25 to just over 2 minutes.  There is a tradeoff between productivity and accuracy and there seemed to be a nice cadence/pace at around 1:45-2 minutes. If you go faster, it may lead to fatigue or inaccuracies. If too fast, it can create anxiety.

The first time a write-in is called out it causes some confusion so a pause would be helpful or slowing down. The same would apply to “Under” and “Over” votes.

It was suggested to put the name of the candidate on the top and bottom of the sheet so the tallier can easily see it as they progress down the sheet.

Both teams thought that using a second color for the recount was better and so it was suggested to start say with blue and recount in red. Then when you get to the next 50 ballots you can switch to red and recount blue.  Overall, they didn’t prefer blue or black and wondered if they could do say purple and green as colors that would pop more.

If caller hands ballot to other person, it may slow the process down but also check to see if there are 2 ballots.

We found it most convenient to write the candidate that was most likely to get more votes to be placed in the far left column. Less errors were produced when the majority of the tallies were placed in far-left column.

 We only used letter sized paper for the tally sheets so legal size may help for readability

May want to swap “Over and Under” on the sheet as under is used more

With one tally sheet the 1-inch binder is not as necessary

Some of the callers preferred plastic surgical gloves, others the rubber fingertips and some the sticky tack to facilitate turning the ballots.

It is definitely beneficial to agree up front on how to shorten the names to call them out.

When talliers, the counter, the observer and the videographer are ready, start the process.   One of the callers should state the date, location (precinct), race/office/issue
that is being counted and the candidate names. If you are shortening the candidate’s
name to save time in the call out   for example, using the first name state what
name or shortcut you are using so that everyone is aware up front.

Race times

Times for the team 2 were 1:40, 1:45, 1:49 &1:52.

Attached is the tally sheet we used.

Note that if we can call each race and reconcile in 2 minutes for 50 ballots. A hundred ballots would be 4 minutes and 1000 ballots (assuming maximum approximate turnout of 70% would result in would be 40 minutes. Assuming 10 races an election this would be a total time of around 400 minutes. This would take 6.67 hours but we rounded it up to 7 and 1/2 for breaks, etc. If you split that between 2 teams of 4 people that would be 3.75 hours to hand count a race. Worse case scenario would be 4 hours tops. All of it would be completed and you would just need to total the batches and send to the county.

We recommend that these counts be videotaped so that there is full transparency and verifiability and that all ballots are reconciled at the end.

Watch here:

Since 2020 many South Carolinians have lost faith in our electronic voting systems. It is essential that we enhance the transparency, accuracy, auditability and accountability of our vote. The solution is simple and it requires your small actions to make it happen. Our state already does some things right, but we can do better.

Perhaps we should follow the lead of some of the European nations and go to a system of hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballot system. This will be totally transparent and save money and time.

In this presentation we discuss the mission, accomplishments, update on the CVR lawsuit (and CVR 101) as well as what YOU can do to help make a difference.

Did you know that as our election systems became more computerized, they became extremely complex? .

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee formed a special Election Integrity Committee designed to offer ideas, suggestions and reports on election equipment and voting procedures and it will integrate its findings of best practices through the Election Integrity Department and communicating its findings on voting schemes, balloting systems, election equipment, and safeguards to elected officials, candidates, and voters;

Problem: Complicated systems need to function with best practices.

Bill 4260 Section 7-13-870 and 880 address this by ensuring all chains of custody for all components of the Electronic Voting System and election process are accounted for at all times up to and inclusive of the retention period.

Solution: Best practices for voter rolls and other issues need to be established.

Best practice of voter roll maintenance is addressed in bill 4261 with decentralization of the voter rolls and separation of inactive and active databases.

Bill 4260 establishes a pilot program for 2024 for at least 3 counties to cast votes on hand-marked paper ballots counted by hand, this will enable our state to establish best practices/lessons learned for this method post pilot program.

In this interview Clint Curtis was asked to code the prototype for flipping elections back in the early 2000s. The code was simple and effective.

He became a whistle blower and testified to Congress. Some 20 years later still nothing has been done about this.

Here is a compelling interview about why the cheat can be done in many ways and why we can’t trust these electronic voting systems.

In this presentation in Orlando, Clint discusses the specifics of when he was asked to write code to flip an election and the implications of electronic voting. He has dedicated his life to safe elections and advocates going to a handmarked, handcounted paper ballots system.

The people want paper

The risks are many

We have learned the hard way over the last few years.  The electronic voting systems are vulnerable. Full stop. Let us count some of the ways. 

Risks to our voting systems—the system is abusable

·       Third party control of our elections—Corporations (ES&S, SCYTL) non-profits (ERIC), the state and the Federal government (the feds are monitoring our machines continually through Albert sensors); in fact, our officials have limited access to the system as they can’t fully access the machines or the source codes

·       There has been evidence of software and hardware vulnerabilities (our whitepaper shows 100s in the systems used in 2020 and 2022). CISA has confirmed multiple vulnerabilities as well.

·       The standards and processes for the certification of the machines are weak. See this video interview of a former employee who tested these machines.

·       No proof of due diligence by the vendors

·       Early voting provides advanced data to potential bad actors

·       Strong potential for internet connectivity/infiltration/hacking—can also be done via undetectable means via cell modem, coding or flash drive

·       Dirty voter rolls/no true signature verification and poor chain of custody for absentee ballots and in person ballots for that matter

·       Components manufactured overseas (China/Taiwan could contain malware)

These are just a few of the risks and we have witnessed abuse of the mail in/absentee ballots across the nation, issues with reconciling votes in GA, and also Epoll book injections in Texas. Vote-flipping from one candidate to another was also present in SC (2022 and 2023) as well as PA (2023) . Multiple people have recently been charged with election tampering.

There needs to be a better way, a re-engineering of the process. Yet when the people state that they have lost confidence in the system and wish to utilize hand-marked, hand-counted ballots our legislators seem apoplectic. Well, they did spend over $51 M in capital on this ES&S system that is used across the state. But if you had spent that money on a faulty car that was a lemon and had issues that were life-threatening and were afraid to drive it due to the risk, wouldn’t you get rid of the car? Wouldn’t you want to protect your family?

The resistance in hand-counting goes beyond the sunk cost of the machines.  The push back is as follows:

Argument 1: It takes too long!

Counterpoint: most counties that hand-count can finish counting in the same day and the tests we have witnessed have resulted in about 130 ballots counted per hour for a 4-person team.  In a precinct of 1500 (our legislative maximum here in SC) and a turnout of 70% which is high it would take 2 teams (8 people) about 4 hours to count the resultant 1000 ballots. Many European counties use hand marked paper ballots.

Argument 2: It isn’t accurate—there are errors. 

Counterpoint: We use hand counts to verify the machines currently so we must think they are accurate. Furthermore, hand counts are able to find errors more readily. Machines can miss errors and that disenfranchises some voters.

Argument 3: We won’t be able to find/hire people to do the hand counting

Counterpoint: It only requires say 2-3 teams per precinct or possibly up to 12 people.  Many people would volunteer for that and if not, you could pay them well. College students would be happy to make say $30/hr. and if you had a hard time recruiting you could utilize a system similar to the jury poll system. As it is quite a few people are needed via the current system to work the polls as well as set up etc.

Argument 4: It isn’t transparent or verifiable

Counterpoint: you can use a video to tape or live feed the process to preserve the info so that it can be verified later via a replay. This would make auditing simple. You could even engage high school kids to verify the tape afterward.   There is no personal information on the ballots so there should be no reason to not be able to take a video of all the ballots after they are cast. The secrecy of ballots is an issue while casting since the voter is still not separated from their ballot. Once the ballot is cast it is no longer secret.  Our constitution states that the count shall be public. This would ensure we are complying with our constitution.

Finally, the cost savings would be considerable as you wouldn’t need to maintain, store, transport machines and other equipment.

The movement of voters in SC to go to a more transparent, verifiable, accurate, and trustworthy system is growing yet our legislators seem tone deaf. To quote a former legislator, “these legislators speak of these machines like their members of their family.”

The Election Defense Alliance of NH summarized it this way back in 2007.

“The introduction of cold, computerized, machines into this arrangement is intuitively unsettling. We have no “relationship” with these things. They take no oaths of allegiance to us. They can’t sit in a jail cell if they defraud us. These computers, with their complexities, their secret vote counts, their private allegiance to their programmers, their potential for insidious tricks, come between us and our community.”

Why do YOU think the legislators are not listening to the people? What are they trying to protect?

Please comment below. And contact your legislators today and tell them. THE PEOPLE PREFER PAPER!

Let’s make SC the model for true election integrity.  

From the RNC resolution URGING A “RETURN TO EXCELLENCE” IN AMERICAN VOTING

AND ELECTIONS

RESOLVED, The Republican National Committee calls on secretaries of state of each state to implement anticounterfeit ballot printing, tracing and verification procedures;

 Problem:  Inadequate operating procedures to trace and verify all steps of the voting process

Operating procedures must be established that confirm proper chain of custody for all components of the EVS inclusive of the EPBs and ballot reconciliation; these should be mandatory and publicly available for free.

*Ballot tracing requires a high-quality chain of custody documents. Remember that our ballots aren’t paper and aren’t verifiable.  Key audit records must be public records; This is particularly important since voters can’t verify barcodes and QR codes.

Solution:  Bill 4260 Section 7-13-870 and 880 address this by ensuring all chains of custody for all components of the EVS and election process are accounted for at all times up to and inclusive of the retention period. It also reinforces the right for all citizens to observe the process. Bill 4261 7-5-35 ensures voters get access to key audit reports and chain of custody records at no charge-they can be put online to reduce admin costs