this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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Republican efforts to hand count ballots in a seemingly low-profile Texas county primary election has led to a number of errors.

Gillespie County Republicans, led by Chairman Bruce Campbell, decided months ago to hand-count more than 8,000 ballots for the county GOP primary on March 5. Campbell then declared the results completely accurate and certified before, less than an hour after that certification, reversing course and saying discrepancies were found.

"It's my mistake for not catching that," Cambell said on Thursday while sitting inside the county election administration office. "I can't believe I did that."

The kerfuffle over ballot counting comes after a November rematch between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump was solidified in primaries last week.

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[–] Altofaltception@lemmy.world 70 points 7 months ago (1 children)

There was a video showing ballot stuffing in Russia's election.

This Republican move seems to be an effort to emulate that election.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 52 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Chairman Bruce Campbell shouted "Hail to the king, baby!" before kicking over the entire container of 8000 ballots, forcing another recount because he suspected demonic influence on the election results.

[–] Haus@kbin.social 21 points 7 months ago

Republicans' effort to count fails after they run out of fingers.

[–] TotalFat@lemmy.world 6 points 7 months ago

Klaatu barada nikto!

[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 45 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Humans are error-prone; of course hand counting will lead to errors. Such a non-issue to try to fix. Dumb.

[–] moody@lemmings.world 38 points 7 months ago (1 children)

That's why typically there are other election employees and observers present. Canada's federal elections are tallied by hand count, and results are always (as far as I'm aware) certified the same day. Canada's population is about 40 million people, so not quite the US's 330+ million, but a lot more than this town's 8000.

[–] elucubra@sopuli.xyz 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Spain also hand counts. At each poll station there are three citizens recruited at random (sort of like jury duty) who run each ballot box. They check voter's credentials and cross off names from the list. The process is overseen by each parties appointed "overseers". The whole counting process must be validated by all. I prefer this method. Machines can be tampered with.

[–] Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Why not machine certify and hand-count verify? Could have both systems for quick results on the day and verified accurate results in the longer term. Have the voting machine print out your results and you can self verify and put them in a secret ballot box to be hand-counted later.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 6 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Why not machine certify and hand-count verify?

Because the manual system works well and costs little.

Could have both systems for quick results on the day and verified accurate results in the longer term.

Canada already has hand-counted and verified results the same day the election occurs, in a country with a population roughly equivalent to the state of California. Adding machine counting would only add complexity and cost while producing no additional benefits.

Have the voting machine

Canada doesn't have voting machines, nor do we want them. Our ballot system is a piece of paper and a pencil. That's it. That's our whole voting "machine."

The real genius is in how the vote counting process works. Every candidate is allowed to provide a representative, often called a scrutineer, to oversee the counting process at each polling station. Scrutineers are allowed to challenge a ballot if they feel it has been attributed to the wrong candidate or should have been considered a spoiled ballot. The doors to the polling station are locked while ballots are being counted, and no one is allowed to go home until the count is complete. Basic self-interest ensures that counts are done in a timely fashion, while also ensuring that every candidate can have a representative that was part of the counting process.

Under the Canadian system, for all practical purposes it would be impossible to perpetrate election fraud. A candidate would need to somehow induce Elections Canada employees and/or volunteers at multiple polling stations to miscount ballots. They would also need to convince multiple scrutineers to turn a blind eye, scrutineers who were nominated by their opponents. Each riding typically has 4+ candidates (at minimum Liberal, Conservative, New Democrat, and Green party candidates, plus often some independent or fringe party candidates), and every single one of those candidates is allowed to provide a scrutineer at each polling station. There will be many polling stations across a single riding, so that's potentially dozens or hundreds of people that would need to be coerced or convinced to contribute to the election fraud. And that's just for one single riding.

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago

The doors to the polling station are locked while ballots are being counted, and no one is allowed to go home until the count is complete. Basic self-interest ensures that counts are done in a timely fashion, while also ensuring that every candidate can have a representative that was part of the counting process.

Right, but do you have a political cult who would willingly stall the process so it would not be completed in a reasonable time just so that they can claim the process is flawed and skewed against them when they lose?

[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It only "costs little" because you have a ton of people willing to do it. What if there's something that prevents people from volunteering? Say, snow? Or maybe a worldwide pandemic? Or massive wildfires?

These are all obvious possibilities. There's really no reason to not machine count with a matching hand count. Extra cost? This is your entire country's election. It's not the time to pinch pennies.

[–] CountVon@sh.itjust.works 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It only “costs little” because you have a ton of people willing to do it.

First off you say that like it's a bad thing. For the record, it is not. Second, many of the people counting votes are paid, i.e. Elections Canada employees. Scrutineers could be volunteers or paid employees of the party/candidate they represent.

What if there’s something that prevents people from volunteering?

That would equally inhibit people from voting. Besides which, elections can and have been postponed in cases of severe weather, and wildfires have been considered in cases where they've been occurring around an election. No politician or Elections Canada supervisor is going to send voters, employees and volunteers out to die for an election.

Or maybe a worldwide pandemic?

We had one, it went fine. Anyone who didn't like the thought of voting in public had the option of voting by mail, something that every Canadian has been allowed to do since 1993.

There’s really no reason to not machine count with a matching hand count.

Yes there fucking is. Machines add completely unnecessary complexity to a simple system that works.

[–] ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I don't know who's downvoting you or why, but this is just nth on the list of reasons I wish I'd been born north of the border. We (US) should never have left paper ballots.

Your system works, and why wouldn't it? It was the gold standard for decades, even here, until we fucked with it. And it wasn't just the unnecessary switch to unsecured electronic voting, either: anyone remember "butterfly" ballots and hanging chads in Florida?

If we still had paper ballots, much of the current accusatory atmosphere regarding the 2020 election would simply not be possible: maybe the count would have been contested or repeated in certain areas, but in the end they'd have had to find some other conspiracy.

[–] ShepherdPie@midwest.social 1 points 7 months ago

Humans can more easily be tampered with (or just be dumb).

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 14 points 7 months ago

That's their goal with the whole Dominion voting machines and crying about mail in voting. It's to weaken our already outdated voting machines/processes and to make it easier to steal elections on their end.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 22 points 7 months ago (2 children)

It's disturbing how little actual information is in the linked article. I'm sure something truly concerning happened, but "more than 8,000 ballots" is literally the only metric provided and then the author just uses the article as an excuse to talk about Mike Lindell and Trump's indictments.

[–] sygnius@lemmy.world 10 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Keep in mind there are roughly 15 to 30 questions on each ballot. If they're manually verifying each answer on each ballot, then it's really easy to make mistakes.

[–] thefartographer@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

Assuming accuracy of your numbers, you've literally increased the article's concrete data by 100%

[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

As I read your comment I'm thinking, oh, this sounds like a Newsweek article.
Checks source... LMAO.

Context: my comment here https://lemmy.ml/comment/9458613

[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Well I'm certainly shocked.

The real question is how many of those votes were scribbled on fortune cookie paper?