Hand-Counted Ballots
What The Critics Say
The messaging put out by main stream media is that hand-counting ballots will not work. As proof, they cite sources such as The Brennan Center for Justice's website that states "Nearly all election jurisdictions across the country use voting machines to count ballots because they are more accurate, faster, and cheaper than counting all ballots by hand." They also state as fact: "Vote-counting machines are more accurate than hand counts when it comes to large numbers of ballots. After the machine count is complete, election officials audit paper ballots to verify the accuracy of machine counts."
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In today's media environment, where narratives are more often than not crafted to push an agenda, it is important to understand the forces that may be at play to influence an organization 's position on certain topics. Case in point, according to Media Bias/Fact Check website, Brennan Center for Justice is a left-of-center leaning organization that has received nearly $6M from George Soros's Open Society Foundation since 2002.
Hand Counted Ballots are Feasible
Hand-Counted Ballot Systems Have been Proven to Work. France adopted in-person hand-counted ballots for its elections years ago and can have results finalized on election day, not weeks later as in some states in the U.S.We are now seeing some counties in the U.S. opting to do away with electronic voting machines and going to a system of hand-counted ballots on election day. For example, Osage County Missouri held a municipal election last week using hand-counted ballots. While the voter turn-out for this rural jurisdiction was small (1,100 voters), it is representative of the size of an average precinct Ohio. The vote was completed in about the same time as machines took in previous elections, and it provided a fully transparent, real-time audit of 100% of the ballots, and was done error free.
Ohio's Legislators Refuse To Allow Counties The Option To Adopt Hand-Counted Ballots
Under current Ohio law, (Section 3506.02 of the Ohio Revised Code (ORC)) “Manner of adopting voting machines, marking devices, and automatic tabulation equipment” states the ways voting machines can be adopted for use in an election, but does not state the ways by which they can be removed if a county chooses to do so. Apparently, the lawmakers of the original bill never anticipated a county wanting to have them removed.
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While arguments can be made for keeping the machines or removing them, one thing should not be up for debate and that is “if a county has the right to vote on adopting electronic voting machines, shouldn’t they also have the right to vote on removing them?“ The existing statute, however, does not provide a process or manner by which a county can follow if its electorate wants to vote on removing them.
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In May 2024,a bill was introduced to the Homeland Security Committee known as HB 472 "Ohio Votes Count Act" which included sweeping election integrity reforms such as correcting errors in voter registration and voter registration databases, updating cybersecurity standards, verifying citizenship of voters, etc. CCVO was asked to draft language to amend the ORC to give counties the option to abandon voting machines in favor of hand counted ballots. It would not be mandatory, but left up to each county to decide.
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As of September 2024, tHB 472 appears not to be supported by legislators.
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