Georgians are voting now in an epic election that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate next year.
Democrats appear unified: Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are making joint appearances with the promise of supporting the president-elect and volunteers have been cautioned to watch the presidential vote count audit and recount quietly and not create delays.
Republicans seem divided: those who acknowledge the Joe Biden win, like Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, are called “enemies of the state.” GOP Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue face the difficult task of supporting President Donald Trump when he says the election was stolen, while convincing voters to come to the polls one more time.
What unifies most Americans is the knowledge that our government functions best when election outcomes are trustworthy, even when the results disappoint us.
Will the upcoming Senate run-off election be deemed trustworthy by most Georgians, when 70% of Republicans reportedly don’t believe the presidential election was “free and fair” and ballot tampering likely occurred?
Unless Georgia simplifies and secures its voting technology immediately, January’s true election outcomes can never be known, verified, or defended. If the election is conducted on the current Dominion touchscreen voting system, the election will result in predictable bitter controversy.
Here’s a modest proposal for the January runoff that is practical, simple, economical and legally authorized:
Georgia should use simple hand marked paper ballots for in-person and mail voting, count them on optical scanners, and conduct robust transparent post-election audits on all three races on the simple January ballot to verify the outcome. Election officials should allow monitors from all parties to observe the mandated signature verification process for absentee mail ballots and inspect strict chain of custody of all ballots. Consider:
· No new equipment is required. The equipment change merely substitutes traditional paper ballots marked with pen for the complex touchscreen units and printers that create and mark a barcoded ballot for a voter.
· Only hand marked ballots are secure. A voting system should never put a computer between the voter and his ballot. Computers invite mischief and errors. The hand marked paper ballot, marked in secret by the voter, is the only current voting method that both protects secrecy and assures that the ballot reflects the choice made by the voter. Approximately 75% of Americans vote using hand marked paper ballots counted by optical scanner.
· Machine vote count errors were detected but not corrected. Secretary Raffensperger just conducted a controversial full hand counted “audit” of the November 3 presidential race. Analysis reveals troubling discrepancies between the machine and hand count at the batch level – but because these variances were largely off-setting, Raffensperger misleadingly claims the system proved itself.
· Switch to hand marked ballots for in-person voting is lawful, and counties are already prepared. Georgia law includes the logical and essential provision that if it is impractical or impossible to use the BMDs (Ballot Marking Devices), then hand marked paper ballots must be used. Polling places are required to have sufficient emergency paper ballots on hand, to be used when the equipment fails or wait times exceed 30 minutes. Pollworkers are required to be trained to issue these hand marked ballots, identical to mail ballots.
· Counties will save time and money. For Fulton County alone, using hand marked paper ballots in place of the touchscreen BMDs saves about 25,000 labor hours, plus substantial transport cost, for a single election.
Reducing our reliance on the Dominion Voting System for the Georgia Senate run-off is an idea that can gather bipartisan support. Replacing the ballot marking touchscreens and printers with paper ballots marked by pen is legal, easy to implement, and ensures unassailable outcomes. Contact Secretary Raffensperger and the State Election Board to insist on this commonsense plan for a verifiable January election.
Control of the U.S. Senate is on the ballot. It is time for an election outcome we can all trust and verify.
Jeanne Dufort is a Morgan County resident, in the real estate business and is a member of the Committee for Good Governance.
