President Trump plans to woo Georgia voters Monday night, hours after President-elect Joe Biden makes a final push to elect candidates in runoff races that can decide which party controls the Senate and the legislative agenda when Biden becomes president.
Trump returning to Dalton; rally will be the first visit by a sitting president in 28 years | Ga Fl News | dailycitizen.news
And
Trump, Biden headline final push in Georgia Senate runoff (wsbtv.com)
The late visits come as Georgians have worked hard to turn out the vote, breaking the Peach State’s record for runoff turnout, even before more votes are cast on Jan. 5, Election Day.
“According to the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, more than 2.3 million voters have cast their ballots…the previous record was set in 2008, when voters in Georgia cast 2.137 million ballots in the entire election,” NBC2 News reported.
Georgia breaks runoff turnout record for Senate races - NBC2 News (nbc-2.com)
But the Senate winners won’t be known until after voting ends. That’s when the actual votes are counted. With stakes so high, it is not surprising that citizens may want to make sure that the calculations are done accurately. And that means old school campaigning will get an Election Night assist from new school technology.
I know about some of the new school techniques because I live in Broward County, the second-most populous county in Florida, which is known for its share of contentious challenges to announced vote totals. That’s why the nonprofit organizations Democracy Counts and Citizens Audit of Broward caught my attention. They utilized an election watchdog app to monitor results in three elections this year.
Actual Vote was created by Democracy Counts, a San Diego-based hi-tech nonprofit that provides the app for free at Google Play and the Apple App Store. The app was updated Dec. 29 for the Georgia runoff elections.
Actual Vote - Apps on Google Play
And
Actual Vote on the App Store (apple.com)
Actual Vote records “polling tapes” that are made public at polling sites after voting ends. It keeps an eye on the chain of custody of data transmission from the polling station to the county election office, which tabulates results, according to Dan Wolf, the founder and CEO of Democracy Counts.
He added, “The app will take pictures of the tally results posted at polling places and upload them onto our servers. After the precinct results are released by the Secretary of State, the data on the tallies is compared with the officially released precinct data."
This information is important in case votes recorded on the polling tapes differ with the official results announced by government officials. The information from Actual Vote will provide advocates with concrete information if they file a lawsuit to challenge the results.
Actual Vote was used in three elections this year in Broward County. Now members of Citizens Audit of Broward, a nonpartisan group of voters, are sharing what they learned with Georgia residents who want to learn about Actual Vote.
For example, in the March presidential primary in Florida, volunteers with Citizens Audit found discrepancies in the vote totals government officials made public. This is what an OpEd News article revealed:
Article: Some Numbers Off for Biden, Sanders in Broward County, Florida Election Auditors Say | OpEdNews
Jamie Friend, a leader of Citizens Audit, said volunteers also learned that workers at some polling stations did not follow the law, which requires that polling tapes be posted for public viewing. Of course, the law also allows folk to record the public record. Friend said some poll workers prevented citizen auditors from doing this.
Recording the poll tapes is the first step in the audit process. Volunteers in Florida then filed requests for public documents, which they compared with the poll tapes to try to explain discrepancies.
Article: Army of Citizen Auditors Keeping Eyes on Nov. 3 Election | OpEdNews
But auditors kept working, even after recording the poll tapes and comparing the results with totals announced by the government.
One way to seek more accurate election results is for citizen auditors to request meetings with election officials to review their findings.
Sometimes, such a meeting can create new issues worth exploring.
For example, a citizen auditor found another story while meeting with Broward County election officials to reconcile the March vote count.
Perry Busby is an author, columnist and IT expert who deployed software for the International Space Station. He wrote two columns for The Westside Gazette, a Ft. Lauderdale weekly, explaining what he found. Busby also published official denials, including from Election Systems & Software, a voracious and powerful voting-machine vendor based in Omaha, NE. Links to these two columns provide the details.
Election Data Sits in a Database: County Election Office Is Denied Access - The Westside Gazette
And
Continuing a Legacy of Sharing the Truth - The Westside Gazette
These are some of the ways the election watchdog app helped concerned citizens protect the vote.
However, Democracy Counts now has a second app that may be helpful in Georgia, a state known for problems with voter suppression.
Stacey Abrams: Republicans "Do Not Know How To Win Without Voter Suppression," Their "Modus Operandi" | Video | RealClearPolitics
The second app is called Wanna Vote. “It documents the extent and impact of voter suppression,” said Wolf, a Harvard-trained attorney. “People who were prevented from voting will vote in this app as they would have, had they been permitted to. This documents the extent of the injury to voters’ rights and demonstrates the magnitude of the suppression on the election outcome.”
Wolf explained how he plans to make Wanna Vote available in Georgia. He said voters in areas where voter suppression stands out will learn about Wanna Vote before Election Day. Voters in select precincts will get a flyer or door hanger that does not look like campaign literature. It will explain what Wanna Vote is and why it’s documenting voter suppression.
The plan also calls for Georgia poll watchers to speak with people after they leave some polling stations to record evidence of voter suppression on the Wanna Vote app.
This makes me wonder: What do Georgia Democrats think about the two Democracy Counts apps? Do state Democratic leaders have other ideas to protect the vote and make sure all votes are counted?
To find out, I sent emails to three members of the Georgia Democratic Party. I got no responses as the New Year approaches.
Democratic Party of Georgia - Help Move Georgia Forward (georgiademocrat.org)
Still, for context, it is worth noting that Georgia citizens have been organizing for decades to turn their state blue. In November, their work paid off in a way that garnered national attention. Biden beat Trump by about 12,000 votes. He was the first Democratic presidential candidate to win in Georgia since 1992.
A decades-long organizing effort led by Black women delivered Georgia to Democrats in 2020. - The New York Times (nytimes.com)
Now local organizers are fighting for their candidates in the two Senate runoff races, which have implications for the fate of the Biden presidency.
The citizens of Georgia deserve to have every vote counted, and counted accurately.