May/June
The Local Beat
In our previous June (2023) meeting, we held a vote, and as a committee, it was voted unanimously to extend a letter of support AGAINST paper ballots to our quorum court and to our community. I’ve sent a letter to each JP on the court and now we are releasing it as an open letter to the citizens of Baxter County.
Baxter County Quorum Court Members
Mountain Home, AR 72653
June 6, 2023
Baxter County Voting Machine Use
Honorable Members of the Quorum Court:
We write to you to urge your support of maintaining the current system of voting by machine for Baxter County elections. While there has been recent promotion and signage around the area looking to make a change back to paper ballots, we would like to encourage the court to consider the following and maintain the current proven usage of voting machines for Baxter County elections.
1) Paper ballots are MORE prone to election fraud.
Poll workers or election officials are technically able to change the voter's mark on the ballot after they have already submitted it. They cannot change the mark made by the machine.
Paper ballots can be lost or destroyed. Without a digital record or scan of the ballot as a backup, those votes are just gone.
EXAMPLE 1: Undervotes: An undervote is when a voter leaves a certain race blank (the voter doesn't vote for any candidate). Undervotes are fairly common.
When an undervote occurs on a hand-counted paper ballot, what is stopping a dishonest poll worker or election commissioner from simply marking the box for one of the candidates to give them extra votes? They didn't change the voter's mark, but just added a new mark to a blank section of the ballot, so no one would be the wiser.
EXAMPLE 2: Humans can't read or change bar codes
Humans can't read or change bar codes, but they CAN easily change or add marks to a hand-counted paper ballot. This makes hand-counted paper ballots much more prone to fraud.
EXAMPLE 3: Most people are NOT cybersecurity experts or computer hackers
The average poll worker is in their 70s and are not cybersecurity experts or computer hackers. If you leave these folks alone and unattended with voting machines, they will not know how to "hack into" the machines to change the results. However, ANYONE with a pen can change a human's mark on a hand-counted paper ballot with ease.
2) Paper ballots are MORE prone to human error.
Imagine a bank teller counting $10,000 in one-dollar bills compared to a money-counting machine doing it.
The teller may make a mistake or maybe even pocket a few bills. The machine won't.
Question: If you were a business owner depositing a large sum of cash into your bank account, would you feel more comfortable with a bank teller or a bill machine counting it?
FACT: In terms of accuracy, our own county recently conducted a hand recount of the millage election to ensure accuracy. It was found the machines were accurate, and they were more accurate than the human counters.
Mountain Home Observer:
PUBLISHED: MAY 17, 2023
May 9 election recount reveals county machines to be accurate, three percent human error when hand counting - Mountain Home Observer
“After a full eight-hour day of poll workers pouring over the county’s ballots, the final count for the evening on the millage election was still off by three percent. When poll workers were asked by Baxter County Clerk Canda Reese if the error was machine-driven or simple human error, the group resoundingly agreed that they were at fault.”
…
“It should be noted that Arkansas does in fact use paper ballots in its electronic voting process. Each ballot clearly shows the results that each voter picked on the voting machines. The only difference between Arkansas’s paper ballots and the handwritten paper ballots that some voters would like to return to is that a machine is used to add the data to the ballot instead of a pen.”
3) Paper ballots will take MUCH longer to count.
The candidates and the public will have to wait days (if not weeks) for the official results unless more poll workers are hired to count the ballots, which then means an increased election budget from the county and SOS.
4) The current voter tabulators utilize paper ballots AND have TRIPLE protection.
Currently, when someone votes, they insert a blank paper ballot (with a barcode on the side) into the voting machine.
After they are finished voting, the machine prints their selections onto the ballot and returns it to the voter.
The voter can visually inspect the paper ballot to make sure their selections are correct before they insert it into the vote tabulator.
When the vote tabulator accepts the paper ballot, it records the voter's selections AND also makes a photocopy scan of the paper ballot which it saves as a JPG, then the paper ballot falls into the locked box below the machine.
Right now, there are THREE security checkpoints where your vote is being recorded:
1) the scan of your selections on your paper ballot (digital record)
2) the saved photocopy of your paper ballot (JPG image)
3) the physical ballot itself (in the locked box)
If any irregularities are found during the vote tabulation process, these three records can be checked against each other for accuracy to determine where the problem occured.
If we move to hand-counted paper ballots, then that is just ONE level of security -- the paper ballot itself. There will be no digital record and no photocopy scan of the ballot to check if an irregularity occurs.
5) Paper ballots cost the county MORE money.
Paper ballots are costly to print and wasteful as not all paper ballots will be used.
Vote Centers do not work well for paper ballots. More polling locations will have to be opened to effectively distribute the different paper ballot styles for each precinct, whereas the voting machines are programmed with every ballot style.
More poll workers will have to be hired to staff these extra polling locations and process all the paper ballots by hand.
FACT: Arkansas SB 250 (now Act 328) requires that “(g) A county that chooses to use paper ballots in place of approved voting machines shall be responsible for the cost of the paper ballots and any devices or machines required for the printing and tabulation of paper ballots under this subchapter”.
In summary, Arkansas switched to using voting tabulating machines to make the election process MORE safe, secure, speedy and efficient. Going back to hand-counted paper ballots is truly a step backwards. Paper Ballots will bring about elections that make it easier for the majority to control the outcome. Our recommendation across the state is for counties to continue to use the current voting machines. As a compromise (maybe in smaller counties), counties can opt to hand count the paper ballots in the event of a run-off for their piece of mind. We would further request that before any decision is made, a cost analysis be conducted by the Quorum Court in conjunction with the Baxter County Election Commision to provide an estimated cost for paper balloting in a general election, including estimated cost of printed ballots, estimated cost of manpower and estimated time to conduct the count of paper ballots.
At our June meeting, the Baxter County Democratic Committee held a vote to prepare a Letter of Support to the Baxter County Quorum Court against reverting to paper ballots. The vote passed unanimously. We invite common-sense Republicans, Independents and citizens of Baxter County to join us on this issue. We must work together for the future of our county. These problems are no longer someone else's.
Respectfully,
Baxter County Democratic Committee
Derek Huber, Chair
JoAnn Baeten, Vice Chair
Josh Price, Former Election Commissioner at Pulaski County Election Commission