“Makes no sense to me. Each state can still publish their own count, and we can add them up.”
I’m just sick of ignorant people ignorantly posting totally bogus stuff like this “centralized” voting conspiracy nonsense that other ignorant and gullible people get sucked into.
ALL election vote-counting is done at the local level, at either the county or parish level. Counties across the nation vary widely in the both polling methods and equipment used to count votes. There is no single company that provides all vote-counting equipment. There’s no central location in the nation or even in each state that counts votes collected at the county level. It’s absurd to believe that there are local vote-accepting machines that somehow get fed the local ballots that are then somehow “counted” in some central U.S. office and the vote totals are transmitted back to each county by the Internet.
Furthermore, most counties have methods for preserving the original votes for audit purposes. In Boulder County in Colorado for example, voting is done by paper ballot, which are counted my machine, and then kept for audit purposes. Recounting can be done either by machine or by hand or both.
It’s really a shame so many people are so ignorant and so gullible to believe such conspiracy nonsense, particularly without doing any online research about how voting and vote counting actually takes place.
Catnipman,
You are correct. I have been in the election-supply business in Texas for a few decades now. HAVA or Help America Vote Act requires that touch-screen voting machines be available at every polling place (to facilitate voting by handicapped persons). In addition, each county provides ballots that are either Optical Scan or Paper (hand count) for each precinct. Voters have the choice to vote via the touch-screen or by ‘marking’ a ballot.
My guess would be that the 10 largest counties in Texas are fully touch-screen, but their equipment undergoes thorough audits from the SOS - Secretary of State’s office prior to certification & elections.
If there were a ‘grand’ conspiracy, every SOS; or at least the SOS’s of the states where things looked fishy, would have to be involved.