There is no way [to protect against election manipulation]. Pray, and make sure your candidate wins by more votes than they can steal. The only way to ensure that vote tallies of paper ballots are counted correctly is to hand-count them with witnesses present.
We must lobby Congress for paper ballots and hand-counting of votes.
Ellen Thiesen, Co-Director, VotersUnite.org
Candidates should encourage voters to vote on paper, on election day at the polls if at all possible; and to observe the subsequent handling and counting of the ballots to the extent allowed by law.
To ensure the greatest potential for accuracy of scanners, the machines should undergo a rigorous pre-election testing. (See John Washburn's guidelines here.) Immediately after the election, as many ballots as the law allows should be hand-counted; any discrepancies between the machine and hand tallies must be thoroughly investigated.
Candidates should not concede until they are convinced they lost fairly; otherwise, they do a disservice to their supporters and to democracy.
Dr. Robert Fitrakis, Author, Attorney, Editor of FreePress.org
Candidates can urge their supporters to vote absentee, by mail, or if the option is available at the polls, on paper ballots. Candidates should take advantage of state laws that allow election observers into the board of elections. Candidates can also do pre- and post-election public records requests to see who has serviced or interacted with the voting machines.
The best method would be to count by hand the ballots or in a scanning machine at the precinct level and post the vote totals at the precinct level. The central tabulator should be used as an audit only, comparing numbers from the counties to the specific precinct numbers.
The best thing a candidate can do is to demand full transparency and insist that private, partisan, for-profit entities be removed from the election process.
Holly Jacobson, Director & Co-Founder, Voter Action.org
Support the use of optical scans. The problem is that unless machines are impounded and security experts allowed to look at the source code in an in-depth way, it's hard to detect electronic voting manipulation.
For electronic voting problems, we need paper ballot backups that are not counted as provisional ballots. Electronic voting machines break down and cause disenfranchisement, because long lines form and people don't get the chance to vote.
We also need robust audits selected in random precincts by each party. I have a 10 percent audit solution.
I don't think that people think [nothing can go wrong] anymore. I think people don't know what to do about it.
Ion Sancho, Supervisor of Elections, Leon County, FL
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