The Myth-Debunking Workbook is Section 9 of the eManual (Missouri Elections: Return to Hand Counting). The Workbook covers myths and findings. (Use the PDF icon on the right to download the document.)
Excerpt from the eManual by Linda Rantz:
I have concluded that most clerks are not election experts. They are not experts on electronic voting equipment, chain of custody, machine certification, or cybersecurity. I am not sure why it would be expected that someone elected for a job with myriad tasks, including human resources, county records, licensing, and budgeting, in addition to administering elections, could start day one as an election expert.
I am also convinced that clerks are not experts in hand‑counting ballots in an election. The sampling of ballots required by law to be hand‑counted to verify voting machine results is a small sampling. The complaints about the time it takes to count the sample are indicators that the hand‑count processes being used are tedious and poorly designed.
Yet, without being experts on electronic voting equipment or hand‑count processes, election officials tenaciously hold their ground that the voting machines are infallible, and hand‑counting will not work. Anything to the contrary is deemed a far‑right conspiracy theory and even intimidation of election officials.
Without expertise, what sources are clerks or elections officials using to base their “objections”? I have found that “objections” from clerks to hand‑counting have no basis but are talking points propagated from sources such as clerk associations and vendors of election‑related products. Election officials will string these “objections” into public litanies of talking points.
Honestly, it can be like playing Whack-A-Mole.* No matter how many “objections” are debunked, another pops up until the litany is done. Then, the conversation will likely end with a dismissing comment, “well, hand counting just doesn’t work.”
A recent and excellent example of a litany of talking points can be found in a December 2024 article in a Wyoming newspaper. The article was about errors in machine voting tabulations due to a mistake on the printed ballots.
Statement by Clerk #1: “This is a human error”
It appeared the clerk was super-intent on making sure it is believed that voting machines are accurate. The clerk lamented, “this is giving hand-count people some ammunition to say, ‘We need a hand-count’.” The newspaper was willing to use the “human error” comment in the headline, probably to ensure it was not missed. How many people read headlines and skip the rest of the story?
For those who do read the entire story, there were more quotes to impugn hand‑counting:
Clerk #2: 2,220 people needed to count 20,000 ballots in 4 hours
Clerk #2: hand count costs between $99,000 and $1.4M
Commissioner: “… more human involvement would lead to more human errors.”
No basis or substantiation was given in the article for these comments. As you will discover in the upcoming pages, these are considered “myths.”
This Myth-Debunking Workbook section is intended to show that comments like those from the Wyoming article are easy to debunk and how to do so.
Much of this information has been used as the overview presentation for the “Train the Trainers” classes. I also use this information for my presentations about hand counting, such as at Turning Point Action’s RNC: Restoring National Confidence event in Las Vegas in January 2024.
Debunking (another way to show “receipts”) begins with understanding the difference between an objection and a myth and then using the tools to prepare the findings to back up your statements. This section explains the most common myths and our findings.
* “Whack-A-Mole” created by Aaron Fechter in 1976, is the copyright of Creative Engineering, Inc.
