Ensuring election integrity

During a visit to the Pullman campus earlier this year, former Washington Secretary of State Kim Wyman underlined the political divide as one of the chief issues facing the country heading into the 2024 Presidential Election.

"We're living in one of most polarized times in our history," Wyman said. "And that political division is creeping into perceptions about our elections."

A recent Gallup poll found that while 84% of Democrats are confident that votes are counted accurately, just 28% of Republicans reported the same sentiment.

To meet this challenge, Wyman and her colleagues at the Bipartisan Policy Center are working to bring knowledge about the elections process and the steps taken to ensure results are timely and accurate.

With a tight presidential race and continuing misinformation about U.S. elections, Washington State University's Thomas S. Foley Institute for Public Policy and Service is part of a national effort to help educate and inform voters about the reliability of perhaps the most crucial part of democratic self-governing.

"Evidence shows that U.S. elections are among the safest and most secure in the world," Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute, said. "In the wake of the 2020 Presidential Election, more than 60 lawsuits as well as numerous recounts and audits found no evidence of widespread irregularity that could have changed the results.

He continued, "Despite this, election integrity has become a divisive partisan issue. Democracy is impossible if voters do not trust the electoral process, and that is why it is more critical than ever that we educate the public about ballot security and election integrity, and we work to increase the transparency in the administration of our elections."

Democracy is impossible if voters do not trust the electoral process, and that is why it is more critical than ever that we educate the public about ballot security and election integrity, and we work to increase the transparency in the administration of our elections.

Cornell Clayton, director of the Foley Institute
Washington State University

Some of the most important work, however, is being done at the local level, where elections workers answer questions and carry out their responsibilities despite rising threats against them.

Sandy Jamison, auditor for Whitman County, wants voters to see her and her fellow auditors across the state as a resource.

"I want people coming to me rather than relying on what they've heard at the coffee shop or saw on Facebook," Jamison said.

Efforts to ensure the integrity of the elections process begin long before votes are counted.

Ballots

Ballot language isn't written or approved solely by one person or one office. It's a collaborative process that involves not only the candidates and municipalities, but county attorneys, the Secretary of State's office, and representatives from the major political parties. And after language is approved by multiple stakeholders, these same groups are invited to participate in testing of county elections equipment that ensure information on ballots is accurately counted in standalone computer systems.

As far as ensuring ballots are delivered and counted without issue, local elections workers take several precautions.

For one, there's never an instance where a lone election worker handles completed ballots without being observed by others. From collecting cast ballots to feeding them into tabulators, there are always at least two fully trained election workers present and opportunities for observers to oversee proceedings.

In a vote-by-mail state like Washington, where ballots are sent to voters to be cast and returned by Election Day, the precautions also include measures to protect the anonymity of how individual voters voted.

When ballots are collected from drop boxes, for instance, they're packed into bags that are locked and sealed. Bags have serial numbers that correspond to a travel log maintained by election workers. That way, it's known where each bag of ballots comes from. The locked bags are then delivered to election offices and securely stored before being unlocked so the ballots can be scanned and tabulated.

Random audits of ballots are conducted during the counting process, requiring election workers to examine batches and confirm that their verification results match up with the computer data.

Signatures

Another key security measure that takes place before ballots are removed from their sealed envelopes and counted is signature verification. Each Washington voter is required to sign the sealed ballot envelope containing their cast ballot prior to submitting it. These signatures are then matched against the voter registration signatures on file by election workers who go through rigorous verification training.

At least three trained election workers must independently flag a ballot envelope as unsigned or having a signature that doesn't match to trigger the review process, explained Vicky Dalton, who serves as Spokane County auditor.

Once a ballot is flagged, a voter is contacted by mail, by phone if a county has a number on record, by text if they've previously signed up, and by email within three days to verify whether they indeed cast a ballot. Voters can submit a new verifying signature by mail or electronically up to 20 days after an election has taken place.

Humans and machines working together

Throughout the ballot tabulation process, technology and the human eye work together.

After signature checks are conducted, election workers remove the security sleeve and separate it from the ballot to ensure anonymity. Workers then review the ballot to check for potential issues such as torn corners or other damage. Ballots are scanned and securely stored as they are collected by county workers. Once it's time to tabulate ballots, they are fed into standalone computer systems not connected to the internet.

One common issue requiring human intervention is if a voter fills in one bubble, but changes their mind and crosses it out. This triggers an adjudication process where at least two workers have to review the ballot to ensure the correct vote is counted.

While some municipalities and states have called for hand-counting ballots, research has found this is a less accurate method than using machine tabulators. Issues at the local level can be compounded by a lack of resources, WSU political scientist Michael Ritter recently found. In spite of this Ritter found that local counties are doing a better job than they were in 2016.

"Counties and states are doing more to provide prospective voters with candidate and election information look-uptools, educating the public on where and how to vote while decreasing the average wait time to vote in places that have in-personvoting," Ritter said. "There's also been a general decline in residual voting, which indicates states and counties are doing a better job of counting ballots in a timely fashion."

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