Tuesday, January 25, 2022
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
In an effort to restore election integrity and to make sure all legal votes in Arizona are counted for, Senator Wendy Rogers (R-6) is introducing legislation that aims to get rid of automated voting machines.
SB 1348 would prohibit the use of electronic or other tabulating equipment and would require all ballots to be counted by hand for any and every state, county, city or town election. Furthermore, neither the Secretary of State, the Board of Supervisors, nor any other officer in charge of elections shall allow the use of electronic or other tabulating equipment. Ballots would be counted by hand only and required to remain segregated by precinct, both before and after counting.
“An alarming number of voting machines are vulnerable to hackers,” said Senator Rogers. “These systems aren’t reliable and don’t have any credibility. We need to make bold moves to guarantee that every vote is accurately counted. We owe this to the people of Arizona. Even just a dozen votes can make or break a race. In order to improve the security of the ballot and election integrity, we need to move from machines to human hand counts.”
To quote American columnist and author William Vaughan, “To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.” SB 1348 returns to an election system that every American can understand: hand counting. With complicated voting systems comes complicated vulnerabilities that can be difficult to detect. Arizonans deserve a voting system they can both understand AND trust. SB 1348 returns us to this.
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