At least six Republican legislators have introduced legislation that would require election ballots to instead be counted electronically. Similar proposals were made by some local governments, including a few New Hampshire towns and Washoe County, in the battleground state for the presidency of Nevada.
Many Republicans are mistrustful of elections and believe that widespread fraud cost Donald Trump his reelection as president. Despite not having any evidence of widespread fraud or major irregularities conspiracy theories have been circulating among Trump’s allies that the voting system was somehow manipulated in favor of Joe Biden. This has led to calls to ban electronic tabulators that scan ballots, record votes and compile race statistics.
“It is our responsibility and it should be our wish, to count every voter and to instill confidence in our citizens that our elections are free and fair, and that their votes are being counted,” stated Mark Alliegro (New Hampshire state representative), sponsor of a hand counting bill similar to those proposed in Arizona, Colorado Missouri, Washington, West Virginia, West Virginia, and Missouri.
Alliegro stated that he was motivated not by the 2020 presidential elections but by his analysis of recounts in almost 50 New Hampshire state legislative races.
Some bill supporters refer to the 2020 election as a reason why they believe his hand-count legislation should be passed. They believe Trump won a landslide win and that cheating is what explains why New Hampshire voters elected a Republican governor, GOP majority in the Legislature and then backed Democrats for federal offices.
The critics of the proposal to abandon electronic ballot tabulators and go back to hand-counting are open about their motivations.
Sylvia Albert, Common Cause’s director of voting and election, said that it was coming from conspiracy theories. It’s trying to lower peoples’ confidence in elections.
Albert and others stated that it is unrealistic to expect election officials to be able count millions of ballots manually and report the results quickly. This is because ballots can often contain dozens of races. It took hundreds of people several months to complete the partisan review of 2 million ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona last summer.
“If there are 500 voters in a jurisdiction, it might be okay. Jennifer Morrell, an ex-elections clerk in Colorado and Utah, now advises state, local, and federal election officials.
Hand-counting can be difficult and time-consuming even in small New Hampshire towns. A typical ballot could contain 50 questions. Joan Dargie, Milford Town Clerk, spoke out against the legislation on behalf New Hampshire City and Town Clerks Association. Her town would need to have 350 to 200 more election workers. She also stated that many of her fellow clerks said they would quit if they had to manually tabulate every ballot.
She said, “People asking for machines to be removed obviously haven’t worked in an electoral election.”
Cobb County in Georgia performed a hand count as a result of the 2020 election. Janine Eveler (elections director in Atlanta), said that it took hundreds of people five to count the votes for President on the roughly 397,000 ballots. It would have taken her 100 days to count each race using the same procedures.
Machine counting is not only faster. Charles Stewart, professor of political sciences at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated that multiple studies have proven it to be more accurate.
It was almost twenty years ago that the first research on this topic was conducted. This involved comparing recounts of New Hampshire races originally tabulated manually to those tabulated automatically by machines. He said that the machines won in this study and subsequent research.
“Counting votes is very tedious. Stewart stated that humans are not good at tedious tasks and that computers excel at tedious tasks.
Post-election audits are also conducted by most states. These audits aim to detect irregularities in ballot scanning and counting. Many Republicans believe that Biden was not legitimately elected. Election machines are a popular target.
Nevada’s Republican county commissioner has proposed a hand-counting system for all ballots. This would be in addition to the return to in-person voting and increased security at polling stations.
Jeanne Herman, Washoe County Commissioner, stated that she is 82 years old and has been through many elections. “I know something is wrong.”
Other commissioners have reacted negatively to the proposal, as has the largest labor union in the state, and a front-page editorial in Northern Nevada’s largest newspaper. The editorial stated that the measure could result in taxpayers spending “millions of dollars to pursue down Facebook rumors about illusory electoral fraud.”
A bill to repeal West Virginia’s state law regarding tabulation machines was killed in committee earlier this year. Missouri lawmakers have yet to act on a bill that would ban electronic voting machines, tabulation equipment, and require hand-counting be livestreamed.
Republican state Rep. Mitch Boggs Jr. sponsored the bill. He said that he doesn’t have proof that elections were manipulated, but is responding to constituent concerns.
Boggs stated, “You file what constituents ask for.” “But, at the end the day, they really want transparency. They want to be sure that elections are secure.
Republican state Rep. Petty McGaugh, Republican state Rep. In 1995, she was appointed clerk for rural Carroll County. At that time, the election staff still manually counted ballots using blocks of five paper. After noticing multiple errors, she switched to an electronic tabulation system and was able to correct them all.
She said, “I don’t think we should go back to hand counting in this day and age where it’s so vulnerable to human error.” “We need to trust electronics and computers.”
This message seems to have reached New Hampshire. A state House committee recommended that the hand-counting legislation be killed. However, the vote was rejected by nine voters in nine of the towns where it was on the ballot.
