Brian Endle, who is running for Mat-Su Borough Assembly, is on a mission to ensure that all votes in Mat-Su Borough elections are hand counted.
He’s part of an coalition of concerned citizens who want to do away with Dominion voting machines for all borough assembly and school board elections, as well as ballot questions that may be posed to area voters.
On Aug. 17 Endle and other hand-count advocates will give a detailed presentation at the Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting to demonstrate exactly how their proposal would work. They first raised the issues at last month’s assembly meeting where roughly 25 people testified in favor of ditching Dominion voting machines.
For now, their efforts are narrowly tailored for local borough elections, but Endle said he hopes the Division of Elections will eventually follow suit and switch to hand counting across the state.
“We’re hoping that the state picks it up, but we also realize that there is ranked-choice voting, where you have to deal with all sorts of other factors,” he said. “We hope ranked-choice voting goes by the wayside, but for now we’re just focused on Mat-Su elections. That’s the only place we can make a difference.”
Endle said he and others gave presentations to Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer prior to the 2020 election in an attempt to convince them to abandon purchasing and using Dominion voting machines.
Endle points to the fact that the Division of Elections already hand counts ballots in 130 precincts around the state.
“We tried and we just got crickets,” Endle said.
Despite the state’s rejection of their ideas, a group of Mat-Su residents began working on a regional approach to election reform.
The current strategy is to focus efforts at the most local level, where change is more likely.
Endle challenged those who say hand-counting is too difficult to pull off, or that there aren’t enough poll workers to do manual tabulations. He noted that the Division of Elections already hand counts ballots in 130 precincts around the state.
“To say that it can’t be done is not true,” he said. “It’s already being done. To say that the Mat-Su can’t do it – we have more people than those precincts, so we certainly can get the resources to do it.”
“When you cast a ballot and put the ballot in the machine, you don’t know what happens after that, and there is no transparency,” Endle said.
The biggest issue is the amount of time people have to spend volunteering on election day, Endle said. To address this, his group is recommending shorter, eight-hour shifts, which might draw in additional workers, who wouldn’t otherwise be able to commit to work a 16-hour a day.
“We suggest having additional poll workers once the polls close,” he said. “Put on some coffee and bring a fresh crew in to do the counting.”
Even if the borough needs additional election workers, Endle said the overall expense wouldn’t be any more than it is already. Currently, the borough pays more than $72,000 to lease Dominions voting machines from the state. That cost would be eliminated under the hand-count approach. Plus, the borough could save some time by not having to test, set up and take down the Dominion voting machines.
Endle and others are pushing for taken hand-counted ballots because they don’t trust Dominion machines.
“When you cast a ballot and put the ballot in the machine, you don’t know what happens after that, and there is no transparency,” Endle said. “We just have to trust those people who say everything is okay. Well, we’ve seen nationally that there are issues with these machines.”
ALASKA WATCHMAN DIRECT TO YOUR INBOX
Endle, who has spent 20 years working in the internet technology field, will present the formal hand-counting proposal to the Assembly on Aug. 17.
Some of the main suggestions include:
— Tallying one entire ballot before moving on to the next ballot
— Reading each vote aloud with the serial number of the ballot
— Letting candidate representatives see and hear the tallying of all ballots
— Video recording the entire tabulation process
— Posting a summary tally on a giant post-It pad after each batch of ballots is counted and confirmed by two poll workers
Also, on the assembly agenda that night is a resolution by Assemblywoman Dee McKee, which would direct the borough clerk to verify each election with a hand count after the machine counts have been tabulated.
TAKING ACTION
— The Aug. 17 Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting starts at 6 p.m. in the Borough Assembly Chambers located at 350 E. Dahlia Avenue in downtown Palmer.
— Those who wish to address the Assembly will have an opportunity at the meeting. Written comments can be sent to assembly members at leg.com@matsugov.us.
— Those who wish to comment by phone should call 1-855-225-2326. You will hear “Joining conference” when upon being admitted to the meeting. You will be automatically muted and able to listen to the meeting. When Mayor Edna DeVries announces audience participation or a public hearing you would like to speak to, press *3. You will hear “Your hand has been raised.” When it is your turn to testify you will hear “Your line has been unmuted.” State your name for the record, spell your last name, and provide your testimony.
— Those who wish to observe the meeting can do so via live stream video here.
19 Comments
Brian Endle! What a concept, a camera positioned to film the task of hand-counting the ballots at the end of election day! I love it. Going back to the old paths. Secrecy behind the curtain is okay, but transparency in the count would go a long way to restore faith in the system. Great job and you will make a great assembly member!
Thank GOD, someone is finally standing up for truth and justice. I am proud to say thank you Mr. Endle!
This is an idea perpetuated by a movement that wants to do away with our fair elections, because they lost. Please, please stop this insanity before you ruin our country.
Who is paying you to troll this site?
Good question, Fergie.. It’s that kind of thinking (or the lack thereof) that has gotten us into the mess we are right now.
And how were we running elections prior to computerized NOT tamper proof machines? The machines are recent. Hand counting has gone on in our country for centuries. I can only guess perhaps you are well under 30 and unaware that computers are quite recent in everyday application?
Loon
LOVE it! Votes have been hand counted for decades! Hundreds of years even. Since a lot of election workers are retired, it would certainly be a great idea to have more workers pulling shorter shifts. Bring in some pizza, gourmet coffee and/or tea. Make sure folks are well cared for. The MSB is small enough for hand counting, certainly. Thank You Brian!
One vote in person with ID
Yes with paper ballots that can be hand counted.
End of story.
Amen. Technology is not always the best choice.
Because ballot box stuffing accusations have never occurred. This as an answer seeking a problem.
Yes they have, and there also is also creative software or electronic manipulation. There are measures that can be implemented also for paper ballot stuffing such as cleaning up the voter rolls and limiting how ballots are transported.
We need someone to do the same in Anchorage!
Yes, of course Anchorage NEEDs transparency and voter integrity in Anchorage. But no chance for that when rolling the dice with the Anchorage assembly members (gotta scratch your heads how they came into office – could it have been with the help from a very liberal City Clerk? Inquiring minds gotta at least ask…) any way, given that reality, chances are zip! Not gonna happen.
Cheaters gonna cheat: the Dominion makes that possible, it is proven the machines are a clear and unquestioned pathway to cheat. Spineless politicians: No guts or glory to take the challenge to do it the ‘normal election route’. Can you picture the pride they would have in a ‘normal count’ win?
Going forward, with machines – we’ll NEVER trust the outcome…NEVER.
Also elimination of absentee voting unless requested for reasons prohibiting voting in person.
My mother counted votes in the 50’s-60’s. The voting was done at the local school gyms and as the votes were counted there the ballots were never out of public view. The public was welcome to stay and watch. People would set up tables and many would bring food and they would stay until the last vote was counted. Each stack of ballots was counted by the 1st person who wrote their numbers down without showing them to anyone. They passed the ballots to the next person who did the same and finally a third person counted them. After all 3 had counted the votes the totals were revealed. If the numbers didn’t match the ballots were passed to a second group of three who counted them using the same method. The integrity of the vote count was never questioned. I think hand counting is the only way to do it and have never understood why machines were used in the first place.
Finally!! If we can trust our elections then we can restore Alaska integrity!! I’m 100% in agreement to hand counting the ballots.
Hand counting is the answer and can be done with better accuracy than the Dominion voting machines we have in the State of Alaska. The Lt. Governor, Meyers, should have disposed of the problem long ago but I think he liked to maintain the one million dollar contract at his finger tips to say he has a serious job. I voted early and put my ballot in a Dominion voting machine to be added to those already in the machine at the division of elections. I asked the woman at the machine if it was connected to the internet and she ignored me and the question. Did not answer. So, I am tired of voting and have my vote manipulated by internet count, and especially for parties I did not vote for. I hate to think that Dunleavy will have another term with the use of those machines…..need I say more?
We need to hand count and use paper ballots. It would seem like it would be lawsuit material the way it is done now with electronic ballots which discriminates against those of us who do not know or want to know that technology. Ballot voting should be fair for everyone. and paper ballots on election day only with exceptions for the military. Up here in the North Star Borough (Tanana Valley) we have ballot stuffing and people being flown in from out of state being paid to go door to door. Then the ballots that are not filled out get automatically filled out by some system technically unknown to us. More discrimination for those of us who have no knowledge of how to fill out electronic ballots. Also, how do you backtrack those electronic ones? No voting process should be allowed that leaves out a majority of us. Also, we have found that we cannot access the addresses of those who vote electronically to mail voter information to them. Governor Dunleavy and Lt. Governor Meyer have jobs to do that they are not doing.