Massachusetts uses paper ballots that are counted by voting machines with optical scanners. These ballots can be hand counted to make sure the machines are counting your vote accurately. It’s a great system… except in Massachusetts, no one ever checks, unless there is a recount.
Unlike California and Vermont and Connecticut and most other states, Massachusetts never uses our paper ballots to audit voting machines. But we should.
Like all computer systems, voting machines can break down or be subject to accidental or deliberate tampering. Some people do not vote because they think their votes are not counted accurately.
Massachusetts needs random post-election audits. Audits are a basic business practice, performed whenever there are numbers to be counted and a lot at stake. And what could be more important than knowing your vote is counted accurately?
In an audit, we compare machine counts to hand counts to make sure they match. If they don’t, we can investigate to find out what went wrong and fix problems. Random audits produce data that election officials can use to find and fix weaknesses in their procedures and identify common voter mistakes that we can work to avoid. Audits deter fraud. Please add your name!
Do we have a list of legislators and where they stand on this?
<
p>Thanks!
I do have a question though. Is there any reason why Galvin could not already be doing this without the need to pass a law? It would seem to fit squarely in his purview as the overseer of elections. And could municipalities do this on municipal elections as well without the need for a state law?
<
p>Yes, a state law requiring the audit of a certain percentage of machines, locations, etc. would further formalize a system whose proper functioning is critical to our democratic process and needs testing to ensure accuracy, but it does seem to me that many of the components of this proposed law could already be in place if Galvin so desired.