In Georgia And Elsewhere, Officials Sow Distrust In Elections By Dismissing Voters’ Integrity Concer

[corbe]

In Georgia And Elsewhere, Officials Sow Distrust In Elections By Dismissing Voters’ Integrity Concerns

BY: JOSH FINDLAY AND ANELISE POWERS
MARCH 04, 2024

Curling v. Raffensperger points to a growing lack of confidence in elections that stretches beyond Georgia and party lines.

Election integrity advocates eagerly await the final verdict in a Georgia case about the security of the state’s voting machines. The decision would significantly affect the election procedures in this key state and beyond. Yet, regardless of the outcome, the case brought by a group of bipartisan plaintiffs against Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger points to a growing lack of confidence in elections that stretches beyond Georgia and party lines.

The Curling v. Raffensperger lawsuit alleges that Georgia’s electronic ballot-marking devices are unreliable for counting the results, threatening a constitutional right to vote. One concern is that voters are unable to confirm that their vote is accurately reflected in the QR codes. When voters opt to vote in person on a machine, they make their selections, and then a ballot is produced that features both a QR code and readable human text, indicating for whom the individual voted.

A discrepancy between a QR code and the readable text is not totally unheard of. Although the issue concerned a different brand of machine, Curling plaintiffs took the stand and pointed to an issue in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, where voting machines flipped votes during the last Pennsylvania municipal election. Election officials in Northampton reassured voters that although the readable text on their ballot indicated a vote for a different candidate than desired, the QR code still accurately reflected their intended choice.

The glitch itself was concerning, but the way election officials addressed the issue is perhaps just as problematic. While Northampton County acknowledged the situation, they completely neglected to address complaints that election officials at certain precincts had instructed voters to vote the opposite of their intention so that the readable text would flip to reflect their desired candidate — a suggestion that could have affected the results of the election. Over in Georgia, several Curling plaintiffs took notice of the oversight that Northampton seemed to try to sweep under the rug and cited it as an event contributing to their skepticism toward their own machines.

Concerning Cases

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https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/04/in-georgia-and-elsewhere-officials-sow-distrust-in-elections-by-dismissing-voters-integrity-concerns/

[corbe]

   @Hoodat

[Hoodat]

Thanks, @corbe .  They have a valid case.  A couple of complaints I have are:

1.  No one can give you a straight answer on which way ballots are fed into the machine - face up or face down.

2.  Why have the two-step process in the first place?  The voter is issued a card with a chip.  The voter places the card into the voting machine and makes selections.  When done, the voter takes the card and goes to a second machine.  The voter slides the card into that machine and hits the print button.  A paper ballot comes out denoting all the votes that voter chose.  The voter then takes the card and hands it to a poll worker.  He/she take the paper ballot and slides it into a third machine (face up or face down) where the vote supposedly is recorded.

3.  The poll worker can see who you voted for before directing you to the third machine.  When my wife voted in 2020, she made several attempts at inserting her ballot face up.  A poll worker approached her, glanced at her ballot, and then directed her to a machine that was sitting off by itself away from the other machines.

4.  Beginning in 2022, all the poll workers wear 'Carter Center' t-shirts.  In order to be a poll worker, one must be hired by the Carter Center in Atlanta.

5.  It is possible to vote last minute absentee and still vote at the polling place since there is no accounting match between the two.  Envelopes are separated from ballots upon arrival, so there is no way to determine where a ballot came from once it gets tossed in the bin.  So double-voting is possible.

[roamer_1]

The whole thing is a travesty.

Any/Every state should have law written that if the result is anywhere near close (say 5 points), that automatic auditing should occur - And by that, any questionable ballot, any questionable result (a precinct with more votes than voters for instance), should be discarded from the tally as a matter of course. That's what audits DO.

It should all be part of the furniture. The FIRST to question the result should be the state itself.