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

WHEREAS, The Republican National Committee has unanimously opposed complicated election schemes like Ranked Choice Voting that is a clear example of the chaos being pushed on our states and territories;

Ranked choice needs to be denounced and illegal in SC as it can only be computed with machines and disenfranchises some voters.

For more on Ranked choice voting see this article: https://thenevadaglobe.com/articles/opinion-the-perils-of-ranked-choice-voting/

“Ranked-choice voting is a scam to rig elections,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted after results from Alaska’s special election showing Palin won Wednesday. “60% of Alaska voters voted for a Republican, but thanks to a convoluted process and ballot exhaustion—which disenfranchises voters—a Democrat ‘won.’” The Hill Sept. 1, 2022.

“It is a scam, a scheme being perpetrated especially on those who thought their votes would count. RCV solves no problem but rather creates them.” Explains why in detail here: rcvscam.com

“Ranked-Choice Voting is a Disaster” by The Foundation for Govt Accountability, read why here https://thefga.org/ranked-choice-voting-is-a-disaster/

“The bottom line is RCV is a scam that destroys integrity in elections” PrescottNews Mar 2023 https://prescottenews.com/index.php/2023/03/15/arizona-freedom-caucus-ranked-choice-voting-is-a-scam-that-destroys-integrity-in-elections/