Momentum Is Building for Counting Ballots by Hand
Momentum Is Building for Counting Ballots by Hand
Centralized vote counting is designed for fraud
After my post Monday proposing a common-sense method of improving election integrity, I got a next message from a fierce liberty lover and government cynic, Janet Hennessey (no relation).
Janet is a grassroots activist who’s been pushing to pass strong election legislation for two years. The great work by the Missouri Legislature last session owes a lot to Janet’s efforts. She wanted me to know that State Senator Bill Eigel is ready support a hand count initiative in the legislature, so we contacted the Senator.
When we asked about the historic levels of distrust in our election system, Senator Eigel said, “As it turns out, we already had the answer for election integrity long before November 2020. We had been following it for more than two centuries by hand counting ballots. Today, hand counting is still used all over the world to reflect accurate elections and, frankly, was used here in America for more than two centuries.”
“It wasn’t until some very powerful special interests that make lots of money selling these machines that suddenly we had pressure to change our process,” Eigel said. “The chaos of the 2020 election is the clearest legacy of that change.”
Hennessy’s View pointed out in a previous post that science fiction author (and progressive) Corey Doctorow believes the US needs to ditch its centralized vote-tech and return to hand counting ballots in the precinct. Eigel agrees.
“The novelty of technology, in this case, didn’t make our government process better or more transparent. In fact, faith in our electoral process is lower than it has been than perhaps at any point in American history.”
Senator Eigel is the first Missouri legislator we contacted, but there are bound to many others who agree with him. Plus, there will be a new class of incoming Representatives and Senators following the November election. We still have time to inform the consent of these freshmen.
“Today, hand counting is still used all over the world to reflect accurate elections and, frankly, was used here in America for more than two centuries.”
—Senator Bill Eigel
I asked Janet Hennessey what readers can do to push the hand count initiative.
“Everyone should simply tell your representatives, county commissioners and election clerks that they will never trust the election results from school board on up until a hand count has occurred. If Europe can do it so can we.”
I’m glad I asked Janet. I’d completely forgotten about the need to educate those who actually run elections: the county commissioners and election clerks. They are likely to fear hand counting as a slow, clumsy process. If we build relationships with election board members and legislators, we can earn permission to pitch them on why hand counting ballots will make their lives easier and their positions trusted again.
In the meantime, please contact your state legislators and legislative candidates now. Let’s get this on the top of the list for the next session.
Agree...If France, Canada and other countries can do it, so can we! Paper ballots, along with decentralized, hand-counted ballots precinct by precinct...NO scanners...is a winning proposition...no internet contact anywhere along the chain of custody! With that in mind, another aspect to include, in order to wean from internet connections, would be the elimination of poll "pads" and return to signing your signature in an actual poll "book"...poll pads are also connected to the internet and are very ineffective as well since they do very little to help identify the signatory as illegible as they are.