The Mat-Su Borough Assembly voted at their October 4th meeting to hand count ballots for future elections. After a five to one decision, with Assembly Member Stephanie Nowers the only no vote, the Borough will no longer have voting machines beginning in 2023. Currently, paper ballots are fed through the machines to count votes so there has always been a paper backup for machine counting in the Borough. Hand counts will still be conducted after a machine count for this November’s election.
More than two dozen residents who spoke at the meeting, most in favor of the legislation, noted a variety of concerns. Those included lack of confidence in vote counting, reports of machine hacking, reported falsification of voting records, and voting machines sharing data to other countries. Approximately 20 letters from residents opposed to the legislation were also included in the Assembly packets, according to Nowers.
28.65 percent of Mat-Su voters turned out for the November 2020 elections, but the July 2022 Special Election turned out less than 8 percent of registered voters.
Nowers asked if there was a plan for hand counting at the precincts if there was inclement weather. The clerk indicated that there was not yet a plan in place.
Nowers asks, “How do we deal with inclement weather or for whatever reason somebody’s car breaks down and the next shift that’s going to do the count cannot get there, do we have a way to deal with that because we’re saying that it needs to be counted at the precinct.”
The Assembly Clerk responds, “At this point we do not have a plan for that. That’s something I would have to have to come up with. However, with regards to how it’s written in this ordinance, if I don’t get a count done at the precinct because somebody can’t get there…I am now violating code.”
During the hearing, multiple residents and Assembly members brought up the high cost of the machines. The Borough paid $72,000 to lease the voting machines for one year, with an expiration of June 30, 2023. That is less than one percent of the overall Borough budget of more than $430,000,000.
Assembly Member Nowers also asked about costs in the future. The Assembly Clerk indicated that there will be an additional estimated cost of $7,000 to hand count during this year’s election to verify the machine counts. However, the Clerk indicated that moving forward, hand counting would be less than the cost to lease the voting machines.
Nowers proposed to continue the hearing until February 7, and to have a Special Meeting for a comprehensive discussion following this year’s election procedures. Nowers indicated this would give the Assembly the opportunity to iron out details and identify any problems that might arise from a hand counting requirement. Nowers noted that she didn’t want to continuously change the ordinance, but to get it right the first time. Other Assembly Members, including Member McKee, disagreed.
Member McKee says, “I appreciate Stephanie’s idea that this is so important that we’ve got to get it right and now I’m going to add the however. There’s a time to get it right but there’s a time to get it done.”
It is clear that many residents of the Mat-Su Borough do not trust the voting machines. The question is how many volunteers will be needed and if they will be able to count all the ballots at each precinct within the 24 hour time requirement.
