16 December 2020 — 0742 mst
Rep-Elect Braxton Mitchell wants Montana’s
primaries to be closed and all its ballots hand counted
Mitchell, a Republican who decisively defeated appointed incumbent Democrat Debo Powers on 3 Nov, will represent House District 3 (Columbia Falls, map) in Montana’s 2021 legislative session. He’ll be the second youngest member. Mallerie Stromswold (R, HD-50, Billings)is a year or two younger.
Stromswold requested a bill (LC1330) on raw milk, so this is a good time to remind people that raw milk is a health hazard that never goes away.
Thus far, Mitchell has requested 12 bills, two of which, highlighted in the following table, are the primary subjects of this post. The legislature’s website has a list of the almost 3,000 bills requested thus far.
Prohibiting electronic voting machines in elections
Montana is a paper ballot state. For federal primary and general elections, ballots are hand counted in 12 small counties. In the other 44 counties, ballots are tabulated with electronic counting machines. [MT SecST voting systems page.] Ballots are hand counted in many local elections, especially in simple elections involving one issue or candidate.
Because short title can be deceptive, vague, or ambiguous, I asked Mitchell what his bill would do:
You requested LC1484, with the short title “Prohibiting electronic voting machines in elections.”
What, exactly, is the technology you want to prohibit? The optical scanning machines that count votes in most of Montana’s counties could be considered electronic voting machines. I’m surmising you’re targeting direct input electronic voting machines such as those with touchscreens (some of these print paper ballots as a backup), but I need your confirmation for that and would like to know why you believe this bill is necessary.
Would you make an exception for electronic machines designed to record the votes of handicapped voters such as the blind?
He replied:
Regarding the Bill. I understand it’s 2020, technological advancements are soaring day by day, but major and minor flaws are always following their advancements. I don’t want those flaws having any potential impact on our election process.
I don’t want to see Montana move in the direction of having electronic touch screen voting, but that’s not what the bill would entail. I believe paper ballots should be counted by hand and not by machines, with poll watchers from both sides of the aisle with a visible vision, and at least 2 cameras on the vote tabulators (I believe the SOS-Elect is pushing that bill, could be wrong). I believe this is the safest way to conduct an election.
I understand this could drastically slow down the counting process, but what’s wrong with slowing down the counting process if we know it’s safe and secure. Again, it’s 2020 but I believe personally and discuss with folks in HD3 that this is a safer route.
Trying to learn more, I asked one more question:
What reason do you have to believe that the vote counting machines currently in use in Montana are not safe and secure?
Mitchell’s reply:
Again, not claiming they’re not safe and I’m not claiming they are safe. I believe hand counting in the long run is a safer route.
Tabulating machines are both labor saving and accuracy improvement devices. They save hundreds of election judge hours, and guard against mistakes made by tired human eyes.
But the machines are not perfect.
They can reject idiosyncratically marked ballots on which the intent of the voter is clear. Programming mistakes can flip or drop votes. Improperly maintained or calibrated machines can miss votes.
The machines are tested before an election by running sample ballots through them. After elections, the accuracy of the count can be tested by hand counting randomly selected precincts.
Chad hunt, Florida, 2000
Voting systems and equipment were improved following the general election debacle of 2000. So was the training of election workers. In Montana, secretaries of state Bob Brown, Brad Johnson, Linda McCulloch, and Corey Stapleton, all worked to improve Montana’s voting systems. Brown, for example, got ride of what he called “those awful” Voteomatic punchcard systems. According to Bill Joy, former chief scientist for Sun Microsystems, punchcards had an error rate of approximately one percent. And, as the nation witnessed during Florida’s recount, hanging chads.
Mitchell needs to provide convincing evidence that (1) electronic ballot tabulating machines are neither sufficiently accurate nor reliable, and (2) hand counts are so much more accurate and reliable than tabulating machines that the machines should be scrapped. Making those cases won’t be easy, especially when he seeks the support of Montana’s clerks and recorders, without whose support the bill will die.
Most elections administrators have confidence in their equipment, protocols, and employees. They take great pride in running fair and accurate elections. Persuading these public servants to revert to revert to the ballot counting methods in place when Montana was granted statehood will require an argument more powerful than "…not claiming they’re not safe and I’m not claiming they are safe."
Hand counting would be prohibitively labor
intensive for ranked choice (instant runoff) voting
Ranked choice voting solves the problem of third party candidates possibly distorting the outcome in elections in which the winner is required to receive the most votes but not a majority of the votes. Here’s Fair Vote’s explanation:
In races where voters select one winner, if a candidate receives more than half of the first choices, that candidate wins, just like in any other election. However, if there is no majority winner after counting first choices, the race is decided by an “instant runoff.” The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and voters who picked that candidate as ‘number 1’ will have their votes count for their next choice. This process continues until there’s a majority winner or a candidate won with more than half of the vote.
Ranked choice, approval voting, and other systems are discussed in considerable detail in William Poundstone’s erudite and entertaining Gaming the Vote.
Maine uses ranked choice voting, as do many other places in the United States.
Montana’s 2021 legislative session will consider LC1540, a bill by Rep. Kelly Kortum (D, HD-65, Bozeman) to “ Permit local governments to use ranked choice voting in local elections.”
Tabulating ballots electronically makes ranked choice voting possible when millions of votes are cast in an election. Mitchell’s bill to require hand counting all ballots would have the practical effect of precluding ranked choice voting in Montana.
Closed primaries prevent crossover voting
Mitchell requested LC1901, “Require closed primaries,” on 10 December. But he’s not the first to ask for such a bill. On 17 July, Rep. Derek Skees (R, HD-11, Lakeside), who just won his fourth and final term as a state representative, requested “Provide for closed primaries,” LC0073. On 2 December, Skees’ draft was placed on hold.
Skees’ plans for life after being termed-out of the house are unknown, but one option would be filing for the state senate in SD-4 (HDs 7 & 8) in 2022 when its present occupant, Republican Sen. Mark Blasdel, is termed out. HD-7’s Repubican Rep. Frank Garner, in his fourth and last house term, may be considering a run in SD-4. In an open primary between Garner and Skees in SD-4, Garner would be the favorite because he would draw votes from independents and crossing-over Democrats. In a closed primary in which only Republicans could vote, Skees, who is much more conservative than Garner, would be favored.
Mitchell’s bill to close primaries would help Skees in a primary against Garner.
Closed primaries require registering voters by party. That will encounter considerable resistance among voters, especially independents; probably enough resistance to kill the bills.