Republished with permission from Governing.com, by Carl Smith

In Brief:

• Despite repeated failure of fraud claims to withstand legal scrutiny, election denial persists.

• In some states, deniers are hoping to win jobs in election administration in the upcoming election.

• The changes they’d like to make in future elections might not calm the waters.

Claims of election fraud haven’t held up to factual scrutiny in court, but that hasn’t ended accusations of wrongdoing or calls for reform. This election cycle, a smattering of staunch election deniers—those who believe the 2020 election was not legitimate or promote falsehoods or conspiracies about election integrity—are running for state or local office, particularly for positions that control election administration.

States United Action, a nonpartisan nonprofit, names 12 candidates for statewide offices with influence over elections—governor, secretary of state and attorney general—as “deniers.” Already, it says, there are 26 in office in 19 states.

It’s harder to see inside the more than 10,000 local entities that administer elections, but an investigation by Rolling Stone and American Doom found 70 deniers already in local positions in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Deniers on the November ballot believe it’s necessary to change how we conduct future elections, but experts say their proposals might not calm the waters they have stirred.

Ditching the Machines

Changing the way votes are cast and counted is central to the election denier platform. In the recent Florida primary, a coalition of 13 “America First” candidates ran to represent the Republican party in races for election supervisor. Six who share these goals made it through.

All in the coalition agree on three things, says Jeff Buongiorno, running in Palm Beach County: one day of voting, paper ballots and hand counting. Buongiorno's bio lists a bevy of IT expertise and experience, but he has deep distrust of election machines. He calls the county’s new equipment and processing facility “a monstrosity” and believes election officials are using its bulletproof windows to shield themselves from the consequences of their misconduct.

Buongiorno says ballots should be hand-counted at the precinct level, and the tally reported to the mayor and town council. They would approve the result and submit it to the Board of Elections. This decentralized approach “would bring the vote count and tabulation back to the politicians closest to the people, who know the community best,” he says.

This approach might seem plausible to someone who hasn't overseen ballot counting, but less so to those who have.

“We’re adamantly opposed to hand counting,” says Wesley Wilcox, supervisor of elections in Marion County, Fla., since 2012. Following the recent primary, his county commissioner asked him to do a “hand audit” as a crosscheck. It took 10 of his trained workers two and a half hours to count just one race on 1,400 ballots in a quiet and controlled environment, Wilcox says.

"I cannot imagine that being done with any high degree of accuracy," Wilcox says of tallying every vote in the county by hand. The average age of his poll workers is 65. Asking them to stay on when polls close and count dozens of items on thousands of ballots after they’ve already worked 14 hours won’t increase accuracy, he says.

Moreover, he’d need four times as many poll workers to complete a count in a reasonable time period, workers he’s required by law to pay. A quadrupled budget isn’t the only challenge. “I can barely find the people that we need now,” Wilcox says. Beyond this, the facilities he uses as polling places aren’t big enough to hold four times as many workers.

Studies of hand-counting have found it unreliable; results can be inaccurate as much as 58 percent of the time. A “test” hand count in Nye County, Nev., during its 2022 primary (alongside a machine count) had a 25 percent error rate and wasn’t completed on deadline. Hand counts can only be verified by another hand count, and can’t be subjected to the rigorous pre-election testing required for voting machines.

Just One Day

Some deniers want to cut off the vote count on election day, suspicious of the ways races have changed post-election day as mail-in and absentee votes are counted. The Florida coalition wants just one day of voting. Voting at any time other than election day is unconstitutional, Buongiorno says, citing a Delaware lower court ruling that was overturned by its Supreme Court.

A destination retirement state, Florida has an abundance of voters who depend on early voting. A one-day requirement would mean twice as many polling places and staff, Wilcox says. Locations available on Tuesdays with ample parking and Americans with Disabilities Act compliancy are already hard to find.

Chris Gleeson, another coalition member, lost his bid to run in Pinellas County. He’s suing, however, claiming that the election was fraudulent. His claim is based on his observation that over 200,000 mail-in ballot requests were processed on one day, a Sunday.

Wilcox isn’t privy to Gleeson’s complaint or the inner workings of another county, but notes that many voters request a mail-in ballot for every election. These requests are processed in a batch and a Sunday is generally a good time to use that much computing power.

The deniers in Florida will have to win their seats. In Michigan, three are running unopposed for county jobs.

A new equipment and processing facility in Palm Beach County, Fla. A group of candidates hoping to win supervisor of election jobs in Florida counties would like to replace machine tabulation with hand counts. (Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections)

No Appetite

Calls to get rid of tabulating machines and move to hand counts reveal a lack of understanding of the complexities of the election system, says Steve Simon, secretary of state for Minnesota. He’s the president of the National Association of Secretaries of State and sees virtually no support for this among them. A hand count in a jurisdiction could throw a whole state election off kilter, he says.

Simon finds it ironic that hand counting is being proposed by those complaining about waiting days and weeks for results. “One sure way to make [long waits] a permanent fixture of elections is to have hand counts,” he says. His colleagues also see the value of voting on days other than election day, even if policies differ from state to state.

“Sometimes reforms are needed after years of doing things a certain way,” Simon says. But that doesn’t justify throwing out practices and policies that are popular, tested and efficient in the name of overthrowing the “current order,” he says.

Denny Hoskins, a Republican candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri, might not agree. He’s come out in support of hand counts and opposes absentee balloting except in the case of disabled persons or those serving overseas in the military. Drop boxes have already been banned in Missouri.

If elected, Hoskins says he will create an election integrity unit within the Secretary of State’s office “to investigate complaints about elections and ensure the rules are being followed.” He declined to say whether he will eliminate voting machines, or to provide evidence of election fraud in his state.

Briana Lennon, the clerk for Boone County, Mo., hasn’t heard Hoskins say how he’d implement his plans. “I've only heard the broad platform,” she says. “It’s unclear to me whether he knows what type of power he has in the current laws.”

There's a good chance Hoskins will have a chance to make at least some changes. It's been years since a Democrat has won state office, Lennon says. His opponent, Democrat Barbara Phifer, thinks he may be far enough out of the Republican mainstream to give her a chance. Moreover, there will be measures on the ballot that could attract voters closer to her side of the fence.

Missouri Rep. Barbara Phifer is running for Secretary of State. A former pastor, she studied in South America at a period when dictators jailed clergy who pushed for open elections. (Facebook)

Stability Has Advantages

Calls to make big changes in election administration are driven by fears that one side is using current procedures to cheat. Buongiorno, for one, is convinced that this has been the norm in every election.

But there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud. Generally, states have adopted policies that work for their residents regardless of party, Simon says. “There's really no basis to claim that these generally benefit one political party or another,” he says. In the same way, hand counts or one-day voting could be expected to disadvantage both sides equally.

People should ask tough questions of their government, Simon says. “It’s OK to be skeptical or reform minded, but you don’t want to dismantle systems that provide stability, accuracy and confidence."