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.