The Who, When, and Why of Vote Counting

Who runs elections?

Each state sets its standards for election procedures but then delegates the actual counting of votes to the local level. Elections are managed by a small number of local government workers and many citizen-volunteers. As we discuss in other briefs, state and local governments also differ in their procedures for early voting and absentee voting and their requirements for voter identification at polling places.  

Preventing Election Fraud

The decentralized nature of American elections is intended to deter election fraud. For local offices, attempts to stuff ballot boxes, remove ballots, or report false totals would require the cooperation of multiple individuals, including in some cases, both election officials and citizen-volunteers. Committing vote fraud (even one vote) is a serious felony. For state and national offices, significant fraud would likely involve many people. Thus, it would be difficult to commit vote fraud without numerous people who are willing to go along without raising an alarm.  

Another reason election fraud is difficult is the emphasis on transparency and bipartisanship. At local polling stations, all actions (from checking in voters to counting ballots at the end of the day) require the participation of poll workers from both the Democrat and Republican parties. Voting machines are also disconnected from the Internet to help prevent them from being hacked. Representatives of local political parties are also given access to polling facilities to monitor election-related processes. With this said, it’s up to government employees and citizen-volunteers to ensure these procedures are followed.

During every election season, there are reports of problems with the electoral process, such as jurisdictions that initially report more votes than there are registered voters in the community. These reports can be seen as a sign that the various review processes are working as intended: discrepancies are discovered, disclosed, and corrected.  

As noted in the briefs mentioned earlier, although organizations investigating vote fraud in America have identified and pursued specific cases, there has not been documented wide-scale fraud. Many alleged concerns wind up relating to state laws versus actual fraud. For example, many states allow mail-in ballots to be accepted after Election Day as long as they are postmarked before Election Day. Some people argue that counting these ballots constitutes fraud. However, as long as officials follow their state’s rules about deadlines, these ballots are valid.

Voting Technologies Across States

One significant difference between states lies in their choice of voting machines. In general, there are three types of voting systems in use across America:

• Electronic voting machines (touch screens) that generate a paper receipt for the voter
• Electronic voting machines that do not generate a paper receipt
• Paper ballots that are scanned electronically

Of these systems, some election experts argue in favor of paper ballots and scanners, as this system allows a more thorough end-to-end audit of the vote-counting process, including a hand-count of ballots if necessary. In contrast, some touch-screen systems do not produce paper records of each vote. And even if a touch-screen system produces a receipt, it is taken by the voter, so election officials must rely on machine records for vote counting and validation.

To investigate variation in the use of different voting technologies, researchers from Everything Policy divided states into their dominant political coalition–Republican, Democrat, or swing state. We divided states into three groups: those that use paper ballots, those that use touch screens, and those that use some combination of these technologies.  

The table shows that about two-thirds of Democrat-controlled states and all swing states use paper ballots, while only about forty percent of Republican-controlled states rely on the same method. Another fifty percent of Republican states use a combination of methods, compared to only twenty-five percent of Democrat states. Only three states (Delaware, Louisiana, and Mississippi) use touch screens state-wide.  

Some experts believe all states will eventually transition back to paper ballot systems, replacing touchscreen voting machines as they wear out. The federal government provides subsidies to defray the cost of these transitions.  

The Take-Away

Voting procedures are designed to be bipartisan, transparent, and auditable. However, the lack of paper ballots in some states limits traditional paper-trail audit results.

Although certain instances of ballot harvesting and election interference (dissemination of mis-information or the suppression of factual information) may likely impact voter turnout and who casts their vote for which candidate, there is little evidence of significant vote fraud in American elections.

Although universal adoption of paper ballot voting systems might allow for more thorough end-to-end audits of the vote-counting process, technology continues to weave its way into all aspects of society.

Some experts believe all states will eventually transition back to paper ballot systems, replacing touchscreen voting machines as they wear out. The federal government provides subsidies to defray the cost of these transitions.  

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