Newsletter

Electronic Voting Devices Used at MNGOP State Convention

The MNGOP should have provided audit reports on every round of voting to every delegate in real time to verify their own vote. Since they did not, the validity of endorsements is in question.

Erik van Mechelen

May 16, 2022 — 1 min read

Even paper ballot elections can be rigged, as we saw recently in France, but using electronic voting without immediate transparency or auditability is a recipe which calls into question the entire process of endorsements.

It would have been simple to share a report showing my device number, 413, with my vote, 7, on the screen to verify to me that my vote went through (and keeping my vote secret).

Even if scrolling through the more than 2,000 device IDs and vote took a few minutes, that would be completed well before the 10 minutes negotiation period for candidates to make deals back stage or in their war rooms.

Campaigns should demand audits of every round of every candidate race: secretary of state, attorney general, and governor (there was only 1 candidate for state auditor, so no voting required there).

But the MNGOP should have provided these reports to every delegate in real time.

Prior to the endorsement process, a motion to strike the proposed rule (to use electronic voting devices) was debated.

This 1-minute speech was given by Susan Shogren Smith who submitted a petition to the MN Canvassing Board questioning the election results prior to that Board certifying Minnesota’s election in December 2020.

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/202A.18

Part way through the convention, multiple people noticed glitches on the devices wherein the device would ask the voter to vote a SECOND time. Does this mean the original vote did not go through? What would have happened if the voter pressed send, put the device in their pocket, and then didn’t realize the glitch? Would their original vote have counted? Or would there be a no-vote or empty vote which the software could designate for another candidate? This last sentence is speculation, but since the source code was not shown to delegates nor were audits of results shared showing individual device IDs and vote numbers, we cannot yet verify whether our votes went through as we desired.