Category Updates

Guest post by Michael Delaney, a concerned Berkeley County voter

We received this letter from a concerned citizen that appears to have worked as a poll clerk or manager. (He also sent this to his representative). We agree that Chain of Custody is a huge issue and that proper procedures and training must be put into place to ensure compliance. Thorough documentation must be also put in place to be reviewed prior to certification and should be available for free to all qualified electors of SC. The issue of chain of custody is addressed in the election bills we are championing this legislative session. Thank you, Mike, for taking the time to address this very ciritcal issue and provide your perspective on how it can be handled.

South Carolina is committed to free and fair elections. At the poll on election day there are two essential elements:

1. One-person one-vote – the South Carolina legislature has recognized the
   criticality of this concept and established law in SC to manage this issue.
   
2. Election equipment and voting material security – election day chain-of-custody
   processes are administratively controlled by the State and County Election
   Offices

The election day chain-of-custody for election equipment and voting materials should be no less rigorous than that which is required for evidence in criminal and civil judiciary processes. The judiciary processes are overseen by the court system. Police effectively manage evidence because chain-of-evidence failure results in acquittal. Election equipment and voting material chain-of-custody is administered by the South
Carolina Election Commission and individual county Voter Registration and Election offices. Every piece of equipment and material should be treated as if it will end up in court, because some day it may. The amount of testimonial evidence obtained the last two years indicates a significant problem with the chain-of-custody of election equipment and voting materials.

• The Berkeley County Republican Party poll watchers reported numerous chain-of-custody violation in the 2022 general election.
• The State audit of the Berkekely County Election reported numerous significant chain-of-custody violations.
• The Berkeley County Republican Party poll watchers reported numerous chain-of-custody violation in the 2024 primary election.

Many chain of custody issues were also identified in the Legislative Audit Council report issued in January of 24. See this related post here: https://www.scsafeelections.org/updates/epic-fail-the-sc-election-commission-audit-by-the-lac/

It is apparent that administrative controls are not sufficient to maintain chain-of-custody of election equipment and voting materials casting shadow on elections in the state of South Carolina. Prior to the electronic voting process, election day chain-of-custody was simple, ballots and a box. Since South Carolina has committed to electronic voting processes, the chain-of-custody processes must be reviewed and codified. Election equipment includes the Electronic Poll Book (EPB), mobile internet hotspot
device (MiFI), Ballot Marking Device (BMD), and Ballot Scanner (DS200) machines. Voting materials are the blank ballots, emergency/provisional ballots and failsafe ballots. These items are described on page 11 and 12 of the Poll Manager’s Handbook (September 2022).

The state legislature should create black letter law to demonstrate the criticality of this issue. It must be maintained from the county eleciton storage through the shipment to the polling place, receipt inspection, initiation, vote canvassing, shut down and preparation for return shipping by poll managers,etc. Meaningful legislation would include the following elements:

Preparation for Election Day

• Positive control of voting equipment during the transport from storage to the polling place
• Positive control of voting equipment stored in a secure space at the polling place including a seal on the door
• Opening the polling place by Poll Clerks and Managers
• Two-person control with verifying signatures on the inventory sheet
• Cutting and recording the seal on the polling place storage
• EPS and MiFi – Cut the shipping seal and inventory
• BMD – Cut the shipping seal, inventory and validation of the
• internal seal
• DS200 – Cut the shipping seal, inventory, start up, validation of the
• internal seal
• DS200 – Opening, validation of empty bins, and attaching bin seals
• Counting of all ballots

Closing the polling place by Poll Clerks and Managers

• Two-person control with verifying signatures on the inventory sheet
• EPS and MiFi – Inventory, pack and apply the shipping seal
• BMD – validation of the internal seal, inventory, pack and apply the shipping sea
• DS200 – Cut the bin seals, inspect bins, reseal bins for transport
• DS200 – Cut the Thumb Drive seal, Print vote counts
• Account for all voting materials
• Complete the Ballot Reconciliation Worksheet

Secure equipment post-election

• Package for transport to the county all cast ballots, lanyard with DS200 thumb drive, two copies each of zero and totals tapes, sealed and locked in blue ballot bin. Blank ballot cards, keys, in sealed/locked ballot bag and the ballot reconciliation worksheet.
• Return equipment to secure storage and apply seal to the door

The above scenario should be codified in South Carolina law because the county
organizations cannot manage this process in the electronic voting era.

We must insist on accessible, secure, verifiable, transparent elections!

President Donald Trump’s win was epic and decisive. The people voted based on their view of the last 4 years. The apparent result of this historic win is a Republican-controlled Presidency, Senate, and, as of today, most likely the House. This clear majority will make it easier for Trump to enact his ‘Make America Great Again’ agenda.

Curiously, the Democrats are united in their messaging that the election process “worked.” Thus far, they are not making claims that there was cheating. However, multiple sources we have spoken to argue that there was cheating, but it was thwarted. Trump likely had additional votes nationwide and won some of the blue states. The allegations are that electronic cheating was mitigated. They stopped the ‘steal’ this time, and the cheating on the ground via ballot dumps was moderated by legal action and increased monitoring by teams of observers.

Reports indicate that the election was not clean and certainly not without issues. There were concerns across the nation and our state of SC:

• Inaccurate voter registration lists resulted in either disenfranchised voters or people voting who were not lawfully allowed
• There were signs of ballot harvesting
• Voter IDs were not required nor uniformly requested
• Electronic poll books crashed and needed to be replaced or “updated” via the internet
• (BMD) Ballot Marking Device “glitches” and miscalibrations “flipped” candidates both on screen and post-printing of the ballot
• Sticky BMDs made it challenging to select a choice and resulted in voters having to take longer to type in selections
• Poll Observers and Poll watchers were not allowed adequate observation of the election process, audits, or testing and, in some cases, were thrown out of polling places and election offices
• There were long lines in early voting, and lines were being shut down early
• Counting was delayed for days in crucial battleground states
• Too many absentee and write-in ballots were issued, thus delaying the processing of the count
• Poor procedures were the norm for the hand count audits
• Most states have unreliable and inadequate logic and accuracy testing
• Ballot programming errors resulted in candidates missing from ballots or missing votes
• Poll workers harassed poll watchers and voters
• Poll workers advised voters how to vote and who to vote for—that is a felony in SC
• There were reports of abuse of curbside voting and the voters who were voting curbside

The above list is not exhaustive, but you get the point. Regardless of who won the elections, our system is in dire need of a redesign. As a nonpartisan group, we welcome anyone who has concerns about elections to come join the fight.

Complexity is the enemy of security. Simplifying our election system should be mandatory. HAVA, the Help America Vote Act, failed. It was a system designed to help the global elites “cheat at scale” for over 20 years. This federal law, along with the National Voter Registration Act, has to be dismantled, and our elections should return to the people. Elections are for the people by the people, and our governmental entities now in charge of elections must realize that they serve us, not the other way around.

Implementation of the Gold Standard for Elections will ensure that elections are secure, verifiable, accessible, and transparent.

Here is what the ideal Gold Standard Election system looks like:

• Voters register in person with a valid ID and citizenship status at least every 4 years; counties are in charge of keeping these records, which are paper
• 1 day of voting and minimal absentee and mail-in voting
• Each precinct must be maintained at  1,500 registrants or less
  •  Currently, there are too many exceptions given by our legislators
• There are no third parties or electronics involved in our elections
• Voting and counting takes place at the precinct and is completely transparent
  • Absentee ballots for the precincts are also counted there. No CENTRAL COUNT
  • All ballots are hand-marked on paper that has anti-theft measures
  • The counting is entirely done by hand
• The counting is recorded in real-time and observed by the public
• All ballots are allowed to be viewed and captured on camera for replay to validate results

For all those who are concerned about this election, let’s audit the vote. We need to determine what happened in 2020, 2022 and 2024. Only massive transparency, viability, security, and accessibility will enable us to trust our elections again.

Next year, we will need your help to implore your legislators to enact these changes. Please stay connected to us and get involved in your local community. We can put you in touch with groups in your area.

Let’s do this!

The SC Safe Election Team

A look behind the curtain at the great and powerful Electronic Voting System

In this video, the gold standard elections team laments that nothing has been fixed since 2020 and, in fact, the situation may be worse. Voter rolls are not up to date. Machines aren’t certified or updated nor are they robustly and thoroughly tested for accuracy. Too many ballots are sent via USPS creating the potential for fraud. Signature verification is non existent or inadequate, voter IDs are not always provided and many of the components in the process are not secure nor followed with proper chain of custody. Laws are often unheeded and there is a rush to certify the results regardless. Listen in for more detail. Just as in the Wizard of OZ, when we cannot see behind the curtain we believe all is well. This is by design. There is a reason election officials and machine manufacturers don’t want us to have access to key audit data and reports. But when we take time to peek behind the curtain we can see that this “safe and secure” system, is a ruse–the whole process is complicated, complex and in need of an entire redesign.

This is not just a Dominion problem and this is not just a few states. These issues are systemic and must be addressed.

We discuss some issues that are troubling, but here is a more comprehensive list.

Step 1 Registration-Voter rolls

Voter rolls not cleaned up in timely fashion

Non-citizens on rolls

Expensive to purchase in order for citizens’ or others to audit

Third parties and partisan groups/orgs responsible rather than employees of the state

Step 2 Validation

No photo ID required

No citizen verification required; non-citizens allowed to vote and/or do vote

Poll workers allow inactive/ineligible voters despite rolls being “frozen”

Same day registration

Partisan poll workers or “adopt a poll” groups

Photo voter registration cards created at polls in real time

Electronic Poll books connected to internet

Electronic Poll books don’t require certification

Electronic Poll books don’t reconcile with tabulators

Electronic Poll books could experience outages

Step 3 Marking and counting

Drop boxes, ballot harvesting

Mail-in balloting

Machine glitches that flip votes

QR codes or bar codes don’t reflect voter intent and there is no way to verify

Programming errors- candidates missing from ballot

Logic and accuracy testing not done in accordance with the law and not robust enough—often not conducted on each machine, each ballot style, or each candidate/question; if no unique number of ballots used can’t confirm vote flipping

Extra “folder/file” on machines that collected “blank ballots”

Lack of/loose security- machines left unattended, security seals missing or voided; access by multiple people, easily accessed with flash drive, passwords unencrypted or non-unique and left in plain text in the system providing easy access to hacker.

First net/Albert sensors potential access-CIS CISA EI-ISAC

Poor chain of custody

Machine malfunction

Poor records/chain of custody on flash drives

Evidence of potential algorithmic presence

More votes than voters in certain areas

Poll tapes don’t match final numbers from the polling location

Too many provisional ballots- high adjudication rates

Early voting risks

Vote centers mix multiple precincts making audits more complicated

Count is not transparent

No audit reports provided for detailed count

Cannot verify vote count

Observers not allowed to view process or count

Ballots coming in late and not supervised; no chain of custody

Double scanned ballots; unsupervised central count areas- fraudulent ballots

Ineligible voters injected into system

UOCAVA not secure or verified

No signature verification

Step 4 Reporting

Reporting –counts changed

Third parties involved- foreign

Late ballots allowed

Mailed ballots taking too long to count—overall risk of absentee ballots

ENR (Election Night Reporting) computer is connected to the internet

Here are some MUST WATCH related videos!

As we approach the 2024 election, many of you will wonder what we can do to improve the process.  The people need trustworthy elections.  For this election, we need to overwhelm the polls so our voices are heard and votes accurately counted.  Ultimately, our country must return to the basics—voting (and counting the ballots) on one day at the local precinct utilizing pen, paper, and people.

Each voter should vote by marking paper ballots hand-counted by volunteers at the precinct with bipartisan participation.  The count should be completely transparent, as our South Carolina state constitution calls for the votes to be “counted in public.”

The Gold Standard team was assembled with people from multiple states (South Carolina, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, and South Dakota) to re-engineer the process.  The result of all their hard work is the Gold Standard Elections Whitepaper.  The team occasionally will meet to discuss various election topics.  Here are some recent videos you may find interesting.

Lack of Trust is the fundamental issue, and ensuring transparent voting is the solution

Too many third-party organizations are involved in our election process, which adds to public mistrust of election results.  “The people” have lost control over the process.  Transparency of the process is vital.  When technology replaces oversight of the people, it becomes a problem. 

 Hava from Ohio explains.  

Machines don’t always catch errors and are not as good as humans at determining voter intent.  Rick explains.  Was your vote counted correctly?  How would you know?

The technology is highly complex.  Why is it so difficult to count circles on a paper?  Why do we need a few million lines of code to count your vote?  There are many layers in the process.  Do our election officials and workers even understand these systems?

There are some reports and methods to enhance transparency, but many election officials refuse to use them.  Why don’t they value transparency?

The best way to count votes is a hand-tally method:

For more on this method, see this video: https://rumble.com/embed/v59a6o3/?pub=3gxmck

The Gold Standard tally method is a great way to count ballots in an emergency and an efficient way to conduct hand-count audits.

Guest post by Laura Downing

We keep hearing that Mis-, Dis-, and Mal-Information are actual threats to democracy and must be dealt with by those who have determined that they are such.

According to CISA (Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency), “Misinformation is false, but not created or shared with the intention of causing harm”. WHO gets to determine “intent” or “harm”?
“Disinformation is deliberately created to mislead, harm, or manipulate a person, social group, organization, or country.” WHO gets to decide that deliberation and
how they misled, harmed, or manipulated others? “Malinformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” WHO gets to decide what is fact and the context? The answers to these questions should identify the “who” that is driving this evaluation. A better evaluation of information is whether it is TRUE or FALSE. TRUE information should be allowed to be created, spread, repeated, or published, and all without punishment or suppression. FALSE information should be allowed to be created, spread, repeated, or published, and all with the expectation that the recipient has the right to rebut, ignore, counter, and/or dismiss all false information. The 9 th Commandment (of the Ten) is about lying and bearing false witness. Both are prohibited by the Almighty. So, those who are involved in false information should know that the penalty is gonna involve extreme heat.

Our Founders knew there was a better way than to have ANYONE determining what speech is “allowed”. They enshrined this RIGHT to free speech in the First Amendment to the Constitution which says, “Congress shall make no law …abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” And yet, the mantra about protecting democracy by doing this very thing is proceeding unabated. Look around. Do you have free speech? Is there freedom of the press? Why are we allowing that right to be curtailed by those who want to restrict it? No country can ever be considered Free unless her citizens are allowed to speak
freely. No one should have the right to tell them what, when, where, how, or if they can say what they want to say. No one. Any effort to suppress speech is, by definition, censorship and unconstitutional.
The next time you are told something is Mis-, Dis-, or Mal-Information, maybe you should focus on whether or not the information is TRUE or FALSE and react accordingly.

The countdown is on for the 2024 election. Now that many states have imposed early voting so many people wonder how and when they should vote. (SC added 14 days of early voting in the election bill of 2022; prior to that we had 1 day of voting except for 2020 where they had a temporary emergency 29 day early voting period). Furthermore, many “influencers” are giving advice that doesn’t make sense to those of us fighting for election integrity 24-7 for the last 4 years.

There are many options: vote early in person?, by absentee ballot?, on election day?

After studying this issue with election integrity experts for the past 4 years we have some answers for you.

In addition, please do the following prior to voting and consider helping ensure your vote counts by:

• Check your registration status; you must be registered at least 30 days prior to the election
• Vote in person on election day; confirm your precinct location beforehand (please refrain from voting early). In this must-see video, Laura and Rick from the Gold Standard Elections team discuss why.

• Encourage your friends to vote; drive them to the polls
• Have a neighborhood picnic for people who voted
• Sign up with your political party to be a poll watcher
• Observe the absentee ballot processing and tabulation
• Attend your county logic and accuracy machine testing
• Attend your county provisional hearing and canvassing/certification of the vote
• Attend your county hand count audit of the results
• Stay up to date on breaking election news at our Telegram channel

Guest post by Lea Williams

Article II § 1 of the South Carolina Constitution states “All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot, but the ballots shall not be counted in secret.” We have been assured by the elections office that we can have confidence that the machines can be trusted, even though the process is not transparent. They claim we can check our “paper” ballots for accuracy but only a small percentage of voters do; and even though they can view their ballot selections, the ballots are read via a barcode at the top. Voters can’t read barcode and aren’t allowed to take pictures in the polling location.

Another way our vote is verified is for the counties to conduct hand count audits open to the public. This process, given my own personal experience, leaves much to be desired. Here are my observations.

In the last primary election, I attended the hand count audit at The Office of Voter Registration and Elections of Charleston County. The public notice said “The purpose of a hand-count audit is to ensure the number of ballots cast was accurately recorded by the tabulation device.” Additionally, the audit ensures that the number of votes cast for a particular candidate was accurately recorded by the tabulation device.’

The audited precincts and contests, however, are selected by the State Election Commission (SEC). The SEC does not use random sampling to determine which precincts and races to audit. I called the SEC on July 2, 2024 to find out the specific process they use to select the precincts and races to be audited. I was told they would have to get permission to send the formula to me and would get back to me. I am still waiting.

The day of the audit when the counting started, I attempted to move up closer to the  table where the staff was performing the audit in order to view the count. I was told I could watch the process, not the count. On the public notice it said, ‘To ensure secrecy of the ballot, photography/videography is prohibited during hand-count audits.’ If I cannot see the ballot nor take a photograph of the ballot because I could somehow identify the ballot’s voter, our ballots are not cast in “secret” as they claim. This actually would violate federal and state law.

In a recent court case, the SEC claimed they could not give the cast vote records (CVRs) because that information would allow those receiving that information to identify the voter. It is very clear that neither the SEC nor the election office believe our votes are cast in secret. Nor are they willing to have any transparency in the ballot counting. The primary issue is that there is a distinct difference in the casting of the vote versus the counting of the vote. As stated at the beginning of this article, our constitution is quite clear that the votes “shall not be counted in secret.” If our current system potentially allows people to identify a voter, that needs to change. Furthermore, we need to design a system and process that allows for the public count that is fully transparent. Voters and candidates deserve to know that their vote was counted correctly and is verifiable. This would inspire trust, which we are sorely lacking now. If voting by machines fails to allow a secret ballot, then we need to stop using them.

Here is one simple thing you can do. Because of the importance of the verifiability of the next election, please call your legislator and demand that the hand count audit after the election includes a public verified random selection of the races to be audited and that the count be done with transparency such that the public can have full view of the ballots.

The SC State Election Commission is currently trying to punish a group of South Carolina citizens for asking for records of the 2020 election. Regardless of your position on what happened in 2020, the following should be very concerning to anyone who values transparency of government. For background on the lawsuit referred to in this article, click here.

This lawsuit, which was essentially a SC Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) challenge, was dismissed earlier this year along with the defendants’ (several counties’ and the State Election Commission’s (SEC’s)) counterclaim. However, upon dismissal of the suit, the SC State Election Commission filed a motion to reconsider the counterclaim against the SC Safe Elections group and its associates to bar us from ever being able to request any records via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) from the state of SC or its counties regarding the 2020 election and to pay their legal fees!!!! On August 5^th, SC Circuit Judge Coble, will hear their motion for reconsideration for this counterclaim.

To add insult to injury, this lawsuit, which was initially filed in August of 2022, was the subject of lawfare by our state and county Governments. After drawing out the case, which should have been heard (based on FOIA law) in 6 months for over 2 years, the judge ultimately dismissed our case and their counterclaim. This is despite the fact that the very first judge assigned to the case decided that not only was there enough information for us to proceed, but that it warranted an injunction which required the counties to preserve the data until the conclusion of the lawsuit, otherwise we and the citizens of South Carolina could potentially suffer irreparable harm. The second judge also decided that there was enough evidence to proceed.

While we disagreed with the third judge’s decision (Judge Coble) to dismiss our case, and after spending in excess of $80,000 which we crowdfunded, we certainly don’t believe that the defendants, the SC State Election Commission (SEC), should come after us for simply trying to get vital information for the 2020 election. Furthermore, it is ironic that while we accepted the judge’s decision, the SEC is asking the judge to reconsider thus forcing us to spend more money in legal fees yet they are complaining that we need to reimburse them? Their actions amount to pure harassment and we have faith that Judge Coble will rule in our favor. We do ask for your continued prayers.

One of the main reasons we brought this case to the court system was that the SEC denied our FOIA requests for Cast Vote Records and the Attorney General’s office refused to correct what we believe was a misguided opinion. We even had multiple expert witnesses who could support this, along with precedent in the majority of other states that release this exact information to the public. The AG’s office thus recommended that the only way for us to settle this matter was through the court system. Unfortunately, we were unable to get our day in court despite the mountain of evidence and expert witnesses on our side, but one must ponder the question, “why is the SC Election Commission trying so hard to keep the 2020 data from being analyzed?” It is not just Cast Vote Records (CVRs). 

Citizens are unable to obtain ballot review files, audit logs, penetration or hash testing results (or evidence that these tests were performed). Voter rolls are priced excessively high at over $2,500 and they are threatening to raise the price even higher. Poll observers are often limited to areas where they are unable to see the machines or election process. In addition, citizens who wish to view the absentee ballot review process and post-election hand count audits are told to sit where they can’t even view the information on the ballot. How can we observe the count of our vote, which by our SC State Constitution is supposed to be public, when our view of the ballots is prohibited? Note that the election commission itself agreed that there was no Personally Identifiable Information (PII) on the ballots.

Trust must be earned and FOIA law, which encourages transparency of government agencies who spend our tax dollars, is an important avenue for citizens to ensure their government is acting in their best interest. Note that a recent Rasmussen poll found that 62% of likely voters believe that there will be cheating in the 2024 election. We are not in the minority.

We are told to trust the machines which are “not connected to the internet,” but we know that machines can be infiltrated regardless, even if they are air-gapped.  We are told to trust our election officials but one county election director who also happened to be the President of the SC Association of Registration and Election Officials (SCARE) was just indicted for Social Security fraud. In fact, that very director’s office was named as a defendant in our lawsuit and her answers could be described as evasive as best. Furthermore, the state of SC Legislative Audit Council’s report of the SC Election Commission that was issued in January of 2024 showed massive issues of concern, particularly regarding cyber and physical security of the machines.  A summary of the issue and the full report are included here. How can we fully trust this system which is overly complex by design and in which our own state auditors found egregious issues?

To summarize, we are told to just trust the entire ecosystem while being denied access to key election records available to citizens in other states like OH, GA and TX, while being harassed and punished for asking questions. This has to stop. Our goal at SC Safe Elections is to enhance the confidence our citizens have in their elections, at a time when this is at an all-time low in our country. In order to do that we need a transparent system and election officials willing to work with us to enhance and improve that system through robust standard operating procedures and processes. Our expertise is wide and deep regarding election laws and best practices. We shouldn’t be punished for trying to improve our government practices. 

The US Supreme Court’s ruling on the Chevron doctrine in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (Loper), will profoundly impact companies and industries regulated by federal agencies that have grown accustomed to being the ultimate arbiter of ambiguous language in the laws, rules and regulations. This ruling sends a strong statement to these agencies regarding their ability to make and interpret laws outside of the legislature. This needs to also apply to the state level. Unconstitutional rules and regulations shouldn’t be promulgated by unelected officials, gaining a rubber stamp by legislators who ofttimes are not versed in those regulations, nor is the process transparent, accessible to, or accepting of citizens who might be. This sort of power can breed corruption and unintended consequences.  Our government officials are servants. They work for the people. They should remember that and act accordingly. We have a government for the people by the people. Transparency of government agencies is crucial to maintaining power by the people. It will help us keep our children safe from indoctrination in our schools, allow us to maintain our property rights and ability to make our own medical decisions, it will allow us to have safer communities free from crime and corporate control.

If you are interested in helping us improve elections and the transparency of our government, contact us at scsafeelections@zohomail.com.