Rassmussen has polled ‘likely voters’ since the 2020 election and the results consistently show that most do not trust electronic voting systems. Notably, 62% believe that there will be cheating in the 2024 election. These results have increased over time, with Democrats and Independents in addition to Republicans increasingly concerned.
Recent incidents of cyber hacks on governmental systems only add to these concerns. In fact, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) warn that the threat assessment of a cyber-attack on the 2024 election is “likely.”
Furthermore, the Crowdstrike incident in July not only affected airlines, hospitals, and businesses but it also affected early voting in the Arizona primary. Electronic poll books, which are connected to the internet were down, crippling two of the largest counties in the state. This issue potentially impacts all 50 states as they all have Albert Sensors which are used to detect malicious traffic in the counties, including election equipment. What effect did the Crowdstrike debacle have on the election infrastructure since these Albert Sensors supposedly run on servers that use Crowdstrike for endpoint security? Can we be assured that our systems weren’t affected? Inquiring minds what to know.
At the minimum, each county needs to have an emergency plan in place to mitigate any unforeseen events as well as to ensure that there is a smooth, uninterrupted vote for the 2024 election. People don’t trust these systems and these recent events only increase concerns over the accuracy of our vote count. There is a better way– a simple, efficient, and transparent method to count ballots. This method can be used as an alternative to machines or can be utilized in the event of an equipment failure or interruption of an electronic voting system. Furthermore, it is a great way to conduct hand-count audits.
Here is a link to the full Gold Standard report for conducting all phases of the election process (Voter Registration, Voter Validation, Marking and Counting, Reporting) to optimize transparency, security, verifiability, and accessibility of our elections.
The video below primarily focuses on the counting of the ballots which is only one part of the 3rd phase of the process, albeit a critical one. It explains the method and includes a quick video (3 minutes and 43 second) clip of someone calling out the names from the actual ballot images from the 2022 Treasurer’s race in Dodge County, WI. We run through a tally of 100 ballots (2 stacks of 50) including ballots from both the ES&S Express Vote Ballot Marking Device (BMD) as well as hand-marked ballots—not unlike your typical mail-in ballot.
You can follow along with this blank tally sheet to try this method yourself. For more info and materials go to uscase.org.
Here is the completed tally sheet from that session. You can check the first 100 ballots that were called out to your tally sheet.
Both completed tally sheets above reconcile.
Ideally, maximizing accessibility for all legal, eligible voters is extremely important. Lack of trust unfortunately is a key reason people won’t vote, thus reducing participation in our elections. Trust will improve only if we can demonstrate secure, transparent, and verifiable elections. If voters have a firm belief in the above, then they will enthusiastically vote. Transparent elections, with ballots being counted by local registered voters at the precinct level, are the ultimate antidote to distrust of the system. It is the duty of our elected officials and election officers to have a plan in place should there be an interruption in our election infrastructure and they also need to focus on constant improvement of the processes and procedures as they stand today.
We hope you found this useful. Please comment on the Rumble video or email us at scsafeelections@zohomail.com or info@uscase.org. We can train you further virtually or in person.
If you want more practice, you can also watch this demo of the Governor’s race https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2WCL1fcEus&t=396s
Here is the empty tally sheet for that race.
