It’s not. I’ve worked the elections both here and in two other states I’ve lived in for over 40 years. I’ve worked elections since I was 16 years old and the days of the voting machines with the curtains and little levers. My father was a precinct committeeman and working elections was expected of all of us kids, and most of us have continued that effort since.
The “check in” station you mention is connected to a secure network that is used to access the voter rolls. It’s not on the “Internet”, it’s an end to end, encrypted, tunneled connection to the SOE which can be a hard wired or wifi connection. This is common practice and is configured and set up well in advance to maintain the security of that data. One of my teams is charged with testing and verification of these connections prior to the elections. The ballot printers are a part of this system. The scanners are purely stand-alone devices and have no connectivity. Counts are typically moved from the scanners to the polling system via secure memory cards that are encrypted. Some scanners also have the capability of printing out results on a paper tape, like an adding machine. The numbers, after being reconciled, are either transmitted to the supervisor of elections’ via the local client at the polling place or the data can be hand carried (in a secure, chain of custody strongbox) back to the SOE (which is how they get back there anyway, along with the paper ballots.) Anyone who has worked the polls has been exposed to these processes and procedures used to guarantee the integrity of the elections. It’s certainly different from one state or municipality to the other, but the general approach is the same. It’s highly controlled and closely audited. Again, it’s not perfect, but the claims of widespread, massive voter fraud are gross misstatements. -D > On Dec 17, 2020, at 7:46 AM, Meade Dillon via Mercedes > <mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > > Dan, I'm afraid your experience is limited. Here in SC, the voting > machines were connected to the internet. Drove me nuts. I'm quite sure > the same could be true in other states, that certainly has been reported in > the press, and the "glitches" that always seemed to switch votes in one > direction (from Trump to Biden) point to the need for a thorough forensic > audit so we can be sure the right candidate really won. > > Our system is similar to what many of you described: one machine where you > 'vote' which creates a paper ballot, and then the voter takes their ballot > (which they can review to make sure it is correct) and feeds it into the > scanner, which counts the vote. Locally, at each polling place, the > scanner totals are printed out after the last vote, and the total number of > votes cast is compared to the number of voters who came into the polling > place. If those two numbers don't match, then they have to try to resolve > that at the polling place, with the poll watchers from each party present > (if they bothered to show up, a great many of our polling places had no > poll watchers - not enough volunteers). Once the count is resolved, then > the electronic votes and the paper ballots are taken to the county election > headquarters and reported out. > > The first station at the polling place was voter check-in to make sure the > voter was registered / at the right polling place, and they (the laptops) > were connected to a local WiFi hot-spot that was part of the system, so > they could communicate / get updates back to the county HQ voter database. > I'm not sure if the ballot printer and ballot scanner were also connected, > but once the count was resolved, it was loaded back onto that laptop > somehow (I'm pretty sure via the local WiFi hotspot) and that laptop was > the way the electronic count was returned to county election HQ. > > Here in Charleston, we had a lot of folks examining the totals and > comparing them to historical patterns, and although the results were > disappointing in some cases and pleasing in others, nothing was observed to > raise alarms in the result. > > What was troubling to me was that we had three known instances of clear > violations of voting law at the polling places, where one party tried to > influence voters or intimidate poll watchers and so favor one party over > the other. This pattern has been repeated locally for years; one side is > convinced that breaking the law and bending the rules in their favor is OK, > and at every election we have to be ready to try to counter this to ensure > the fairest election possible. It is very easy for me to believe that this > same pattern repeats across the nation, and the impact can be enough to > swing the result in a tight race. If we had a tight race and these same > patterns of law-breaking and rule bending were present, I'd be among the > first to cry foul and seek a recount / remedy. > ------------- > Max > Charleston SC > > > On Thu, Dec 17, 2020 at 6:53 AM Dan Penoff via Mercedes < > mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: > >> Working with the SOE (supervisor of elections) here I can calm your fears. >> >> As previously stated, a nation state, most likely the Russians, did breach >> several state’s voter registration databases aound the 2016 election. While >> problematic for a lot of reasons, doing so had no effect on the actual >> voting process. >> >> The actual voting systems, which vary from state to state, are always “air >> gapped” in the sense that voting machines are never, ever connected to the >> Internet or any network of any kind. As described by others, ballots are >> typically printed out for each voter as they register or check in at a >> polling place, filled out by the voter, then scanned by a completely >> stand-alone voting machine. The votes tabulated in that machine are >> collected on a memory card or other means of electronic storage that is >> encrypted using state of the art encryption protocols. There is a clearly >> defined chain of custody involving the handling of the machines, memory >> cards, ballots and anything else involved in the process. >> >> When auditing the results, paper ballots marked by the voters are scanned >> by a machine and tabulated separately to compare with the results tabulated >> by the voting machines. >> >> It’s a very, very highly controlled process that has changed little over >> the years. Most states and municipalities continue to use a paper ballot of >> some sort in order to provide a hard copy of the votes - I’m not aware of >> anyone who does it 100% electronically, although there may be somewhere. >> >> The stories about massive numbers of votes being added/removed and such >> are bogus. The process simply doesn’t have the capacity for such >> alterations, and even if someone tried it, the audits done using the >> physical paper ballots would quickly reveal any discrepancies. Mistakes do >> happen, and they’re typically identified in short order when audits are >> performed and corrected on the spot. It’s still a very manual process >> everywhere I know of, and that’s one of the reasons why the integrity of >> the process has been preserved. >> >> -D >> >>> On Dec 17, 2020, at 2:09 AM, Scott Ritchey via Mercedes < >> mercedes@okiebenz.com> wrote: >>> >>> My current NC county as well as my previous FL county used this system. >> After marking a paper ballot the voter feeds it into a reader which >> indicates that the ballot was accepted (read OK) or rejected (spit back >> out). Accepted ballots are held within the machine. This is the best >> system I know: simple, cheap, secure and auditable. Anything more complex >> facilitates fraud, IMO. >>> >>> -----Original Message----- >>> From: Kaleb Striplin via Mercedes, Wednesday, December 16, 2020 11:33 >> PM >>> >>> Here in our state you get a paper ballot that you color in the squares >> to vote. Then feed it into a machine that scans it and counts it. Even >> though a machine counts it, you still have a physical paper that can be >> hand counted later. Are other states totally electronic? >>> >>> Sent from my iPhone >>> >>> >>> >>> _______________________________________ >>> http://www.okiebenz.com >>> >>> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >>> >>> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >>> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >>> >> >> >> _______________________________________ >> http://www.okiebenz.com >> >> To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ >> >> To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: >> http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com >> >> > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
