Election verification – Can voters be sure their votes will be counted in 2022

Vidya Sethuraman
India Post News Service

EMS Briefing on Nov 4 experts spoke on the National Overview of how this election’s ballots will be collected, counted and tallied, and how the elections will be certified.  The full process for counting votes involves a series of steps that take place over the course of weeks. Each of these steps has safeguards in place to protect the rights of voters and the integrity of our elections.

Derek Tisler, counsel in the Brennan Center for Law & Justice Elections & Government Program has just now published “The Roadmap to the Official Count in the 2022 Election.” It lays out how this election’s ballots will be collected, counted, and tallied, and how the elections will be certified – processes that have been the subjects of baseless conspiracy theories, myths, and misinformation. Our experts in election administration and security explain what will happen to ballots before and after Election Day, those cast by mail and in person. They describe the processes at each step that will ensure the results are accurate. They also provide battleground states’ deadlines for key steps in the count.

 “The Roadmap to the Official Count in the 2022 Election” explains each of the following stages:

1. Receiving voters’ ballots
2. Processing mail ballots
3. Tabulation (recording each vote)
4. Reporting unofficial results
5. Adjudicating and counting provisional ballots
6. Curing (giving voters the chance to fix technical mistakes)
7. Canvassing (counting and resolving discrepancies)
8. Auditing (double checking the accuracy of the results)
9. (If necessary) Conducting recounts
10. Certification (approving the complete and final results)

Despite the many challenges that election officials faced in 2020 with the pandemic and with record breaking turnout, federal officials and election security experts declared that election the most secure in history,” said Derek Tisler. These processes generally take place in public. Representatives from campaigns, political parties, media and the general public can and do observe election workers as they count and recount ballots to make sure that workers follow every step correctly, as outlined by law,” Tisler says.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber, California ́s first Black Secretary of State putting her in charge of overseeing the state’s election procedures offered similar reassurances. “Elections are complicated sometimes,” she acknowledged, adding that while the process is simple there are safeguards in place that make the count more secure and make sure that every vote gets counted.

“I am committed to ensuring that your vote will count. Every vote that you place in the envelope or place in a box or take part in at the local polling place, we are committed to making sure that every vote in California counts,” Weber said.

She cautioned California voters to sign the envelope if they vote by mail. “We have lots of discussions about ballots that are rejected or take more time to count, or we have to go verify and find the voter and get them to come and sign that ballot.