The American Democracy Minute Radio Report & Podcast for Nov. 9, 2022
Today’s Links
Articles & Resources:
Associated Press – Nevada officials begin unprecedented hand count of ballots
AZ Central –
In court, opponents of Cochise County hand count raise legal concerns as backers seek to allay fears
Associated Press – Judge blocks hand-count of ballots in Cochise County
NH Bulletin – Overvoted ballots could slow down state’s election workers and delay results
You’re listening to the American Democracy Minute, keeping YOUR government by and for the people.
In our last report, we suggested that “election night won’t be results night” in many places around the country due to the slower counting of mail-in ballots.
But in some jurisdictions, it’s not the mail slowing things down, it’s conspiracy theories.
Nye County, Nevada supervisors voted in August to conduct its General Election by hand, in a county with 33,000 registered voters. The Associated Press reports that in the pre-election counting of early mail-in ballots, after a full day with 60 volunteers, Nye County had only counted 900 of its received 1,950 mail-in ballots.
In study after study, optical ballot readers are found to be faster and with an accuracy so close to perfect that unless the margin is razor thin, there is no point to recounting by hand. In this case, no ballot readers were to be used at all. The AP observed two groups of five officials who spent about three hours each counting 50 ballots.
In New Hampshire, a fringe conspiracy theory group claiming that optical ballot tabulators are subject to fraud and hacking, said it planned to intentionally “overvote” ballots. Overvotes – voting for more candidates than allowed – forces a hand count. Last spring, the same group failed in its attempt to convince any NH towns to mandate only hand counting. It’s unclear how much extra counting time was added by the Overvote action. Be careful what you wish for.
We have links to articles at AmericanDemocracyMinute.org
For the American Democracy Minute, I’m Brian Beihl.