Clerk of Court, Bridget Hanna
“Louisiana does not rank highly in many areas, but we are known and recognized for our election processes,” proudly declared Clerk of Court Bridget Hanna. “It would be dreadful to allow our extraordinary election process, built over many years, to be thrown out because of unfounded theories from a few people with little or no experience in election administration.”
There is a movement afoot to scrap Louisiana’s highly regarded electronic voting system in favor of paper ballots, meaning hand counting of every ballot cast over 64 Louisiana parishes. There were 2,169,401 votes cast in Louisiana for the November 3, 2020, election, the highest turnout for the latest four-year cycle because it included the contest for US President.
Even so, results were known with assurance early that night, something that Louisianans have grown accustomed to over the years. That will be an impossibility should the state shift to hand-counting paper ballots for every election according to the Clerk of Court.
“I simply cannot understand how some groups think an all-paper system is the answer,” Bridget Hanna said. “After the 2020 elections there were numerous allegations in several states about drop boxes with paper ballots being brought in and counted after election day. In my opinion, election fraud is much easier to achieve with paper ballots.”
Hanna provided a non-exhaustive list of potential problems, citing:
- Precinct locations with many different paper ballot styles – how do you secure those ballots?
- Voters may “over-vote” on paper. This will cause their votes to go uncounted in that election because there would be no way to determine voter intent with any certainty.
- Voter error is more common, e.g., failing to fill in oval completely.
- Securing paper ballots in transit from polling stations to the Clerk of Court’s office on election day poses a serious security issue.
- Longer lines resulting from delays like (1) Election commissioners having to select the correct ballot style for each voter; (2) Manually filling out of ballots by every voter; and (3) Inevitable mistakes means ballot spoilage, necessitating new procedures to address, with the voter having to start the process over.
- Parish Boards of Election Supervisors will have to begin counting absentee/early votes, due by 4:30 the day before an election, at least a week in advance of election day. In large elections counting will continue beyond election day.
- Tallying results without machines is proven to be less reliable, exposing future elections to more chaos, even actual fraud.
“The hand-marked paper ballots/hand-counting movement is an overreaction to horror stories coming out of the 2020 elections conducted in other states where illegal election day practices and unrestricted mail-in paper ballots raised questions about election integrity,” Hanna explained. “We did not have those issues in Louisiana with our voting machines and secure absentee and early voting.”
Every state government made specific accommodations for an election conducted during the COVID pandemic. Some states went much further than others. A return to normalcy should alleviate those concerns in many a state not named Louisiana. All paper elections are not, in Bridget Hanna’s view, the solution for something that was not viewed as a problem before 2020 and, in fact, creates even more issues.
“Every single paper ballot – voted, un-voted, or spoiled – must be manually accounted for and secured before, during and after the election. This means security at EVERY POLLING LOCATION during the election and afterwards when transferring ballots back to the Clerk of Court,” Hanna described a process necessitating enormous expense while many parishes already face fiscal crises. “In Ascension we have 37 polling locations for our 72 precincts, increasing to 43 and 74 next year. That means 37 deputies or security officers would have to be hired every election day and three more for a week of early voting.”
The act of hand-counting entails its own deficiencies in Bridget Hanna’s view. She cited recent Arizona results in support.
- Mohave County AZ performed a hand-count test run in 2022 as trained election workers spent three days hand-counting 850 ballots. All told, the ballots included 30,600 elections and 46 counting errors were made, a 0.15% error rate compared to the allowable error rate for certified equipment, 0.00001%.
- Each ballot took three minutes to count, leading officials to conclude that an actual election would require at least 245 counters to tally results for seven days a week for three weeks (not including reconciliation of inevitable mistakes).
- After the 2020 election Maricopa County AZ state law required a hand-count, overseen by both political parties. The result was a 100% match with the machine count.
“Hand-counting has been shown to be significantly less accurate, much more expensive, and time-consuming than using voting machines. The persons doing the hand-count will have to make judgment calls as to voter intent whenever ballots are not filled correctly,” Clerk of Court Hanna pointed out. “The problems with hand-counting don’t end there.”
She expressed particular concern about the “strong possibility that results would leak out” as the count occurs throughout election day. Requiring so much additional manpower, “potentially hundreds of people would have knowledge of results prior to announcement. There is no way to guarantee confidentiality.”
Electronic voting machines are superior in several respects according to Bridget Hanna.
- Voting technologies facilitate accessible, private, and independent voting for more than 35 million Americans with disabilities; including ballot marking, verification and casting as required by federal law.
- It helps election officials generate accurate, efficient reporting while reducing costs and personnel requirements.
- It is faster than hand-counting, allowing for results to be tallied and reported on election night.
- Voting systems must meet rigorous technological standards, they are tested and certified by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
- Voting machines have proven safe and accurate, especially in combination with audits to ensure accuracy.
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