100% paper ballots which provide a physical record of the voter's intent
- Use of paper ballot counting machines, not voting machines
- Strict chain of custody for ballots with daily reconciliation during early voting
- Application required to receive a mail ballot - no mass mailing of ballots
- Counting machines tested prior to every election
- Counting machines not connected to the internet
- Drop boxes under 24/7 monitoring
Here's what has already been done in the lead up to this EO being issued:
- Removal of almost 80k deceased voters from the rolls requirement of a full 9 digit social security number, proof of identity, and proof of legal status when registering to vote.
- Audits of list maintenance practices
- Regular National Change of Address mailings to identify voters who no longer live in VA
- Streamlining of process of removing deceased voters, improving access to databases, and comprehensive auditing of voter rolls
You can read the Order here: https://www.governor.virginia.gov/media/governorvirginiagov/governor-of-virginia/pdf/eo/EO-35-Comprehensive-Election-Security-Ensuring-Legal-Voters-and-Accurate-Counting---vF---8.7.24.pdf
Good but not enough. We have fraud here in FL still with the ballot scanners. I am certain that they can insert Easter Egg code. Unless you do a full audit on paper ballots rather than just a recount, you won’t catch the fraud.
If I were cheating under these rules, and had access to the counting machines and the code running on them, then:
I would program a certain count pattern, essentially like a code, when the counting machine encounters that very specific pattern, then it would start to count differently. (The pattern would need to be long enough that you wouldn't run into it by chance alone)
Whenever a new batch was being counted, if it did not have that pattern at the, it would revert back to normal counting.
Then you'd just need people on the inside that batch ballots and hand them off to the counters, have those people order ballots for the specific pattern and voila. (Which might be the same person)
Ballot counting machines should only ever be used in conjunction with hand counting, used purely as a sanity check. If at any time both counts don't match, then you know something is wrong.
Interestingly, before I knew about fraud, I quizzed a co-worker who always runs a polling place. Because my husband has always mis-trusted the machines. There are two modes on the scanners. A test mode and the voting mode. The test ballots are run through in test mode. Remember Volkswagen cheating on their emissions testing? Different code for the different modes. To go into vote mode, there is a series of steps to set up the machines.
On the ES&S scanners, there is (or used to be?) a weird button to ignore red ink. Since when do any ballots ever have red ink on them?
press that button (as it is only pressed in vote mode) and you can activate a piece of code that is unknown (because no one ever inspects these machines code bases) and suddenly every 3rd ballot is sent to the adjudicated bin behind the curtain under the machine. If the process isn’t closely followed, hanky panky can happen with those ballots getting adjudicated.
I will say that after seeing 2000 mules, I think most of the cheating is happening via mail-in ballots. There was a mule ring identified between Orlando and Jacksonville so it would have been easy for them to add ballots in Seminole County.