On Oct. 3, former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison for tampering with voting technology used in the 2020 election. She wasn’t trying to finesse the count, though, she was trying to prove someone else had. Spoiler: They hadn’t. 

Peters’ actions turned her into the celebrity face of a movement, one casting doubt on the deeply complex mechanics of how one’s vote is counted and vetted, all with the goal of reinstating former president Donald Trump as commander-in-chief. The echoing effects of such conspiracies will be felt again in 2024, using the internet and the public’s awareness of the technology’s vulnerabilities, to once again call the process into question.

As part of this distrust campaign, conservative figureheads, including Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have demanded the use of paper ballots in the upcoming presidential election, arguing the analog voting process (which offers a physical record of the count) is a more secure bet for vote tabulating. Elon Musk, accompanying Trump on the campaign trail, has continued to claim that voting machines are used to rig elections digitally and has asked that counties hand count paper ballots insteads. What the public may not realize is that just about every state already uses paper ballots. According to estimates by the Brennan Center, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, 98 percent of ballots cast this year will be on paper. 

Derek Tisler, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, co-authored the center’s recent report on the state of paper ballots and has worked extensively in election security and voting machine infrastructure. 

“There is just more attention on the mechanics of election administration,” Tisler said, “in a way that there never was before 2020.” Where once people’s awareness of their vote started and ended with how to cast a ballot, “Now, there is so much more attention on who is running the elections and what the entire voting process looks like, from registration to the day that results are final. That is having different impacts on different people.”

Our nation operates what is essentially 50 different electoral processes at once during a presidential election, Tisler says, generating an abundance of rules, guidelines, and mechanics that are in need of constant adjustment in order to create clear and reliable information for voters. Working against this process is rampant conspiratorial thinking by many Americans, built on misconceptions and stoked by rampant fear-mongering — some, like Tisler and other election security experts, view this state of disinformation as the bigger democratic concern.

America’s voting machine obsession

Historically, public confidence in elections — and technology’s role — has fluctuated. The controversial “hanging chad” issue of the 2000 presidential election resulted in a push for the digitization of the voting process. As a result, advancing tech, like electronic poll books and machines, have made the system more convenient and accessible for many, including those with disabilities and non-English speakers, and has, overall, improved accuracy. It’s also cut down costs on a system that relies heavily on a labor force of volunteer citizens.

But foreign interference in the 2016 election, hacking and disinformation attempts in the 2020 election, and continued incredulity thrown at elections by right-wing leadership, have complicated the matter. Lingering fears of interference and unfounded conspiracy theories about things like mail-in voting, poll observers, and (allegedly) rampant fraud, have made the field of information even hazier.

It is your community who is running those elections. It is your neighbors… It’s those people who are stepping up to make this process happen.

At the center of the controversy rests the nation’s “voting machine crisis,” featuring a dearth of modernized machine units and an abundance of outdated machines that couldn’t stand up to security risks. Some machines, known as optical scanning machines, simply record hand-penned ballots. Others, direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines, use touch screens and store votes in the machine’s internal memory. The latter attempted to correct the accounting issues of the former, but country and state software systems for DREs unveiled a new problem: foreign and domestic cyberattacks taking advantage of outdated machines.

“Some Republicans have spread lies that election machinery is rigged and not to be trusted but there is no evidence to support that,” Darrell West, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute Governance Studies program and disinformation researcher, told Mashable. “There were many lawsuits in 2020 and there was no evidence that voting equipment malfunctioned or did not record votes properly.”

Following the 2020 results, election tech manufacturers Dominion and Smartmatic USA were accused of enabling a “stolen” election by changing or deleting votes on such machines. But these claims were unfounded, with both companies recently settling defamation lawsuits against the individuals and media networks that popularized the accusations. “It’s completely predictable that a lot of the confusion, even conspiracy theories, have centered on technology — on the voting machines themselves,” said Tisler. “Anytime you are talking about computers, it is difficult for the average person to understand what exactly is happening and how it works.”

This is exacerbated by inflammatory comments like Musks’, insinuating that voting machines are easily hacked machinery able to be manipulated by anyone with computer knowledge. “They are tested extensively and not connected to the internet so [they] cannot be hacked. People should feel secure that their votes will be recorded fairly and accurately,” said West.

Foreign interference through phishing schemes, personal data leaks, and breaches of proprietary systems operating election tech are enough to prompt ongoing pressure on government leaders to build a more secure and transparent security protocol. But, as experts have routinely said, it’s not enough to question the process entirely, despite urging from conspiracy theorists.

In 2018, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission allocated $380 million toward improving federal election administration, enhancing election technology, and improving election security, as part of the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA). More than $100 million of that was intended for voting equipment upgrades, but few counties had adequate resources to overhaul. Another $800 million investment in 2023 has attempted to fill in the gaps and push the majority of jurisdictions over the bureaucratic hump.  

The Brennan Center has calculated a near $300 million dollar budget to replace voting equipment, which will only increase as current machines also age out. That’s to be expected, however. Just as consumers phase out their personal devices for the latest models, election tech must evolve. Voters’ knowledge has to evolve, as well. 

Building back trust in the electoral process

General trust in the government has been low for decades. In 2023 polling by the Pew Research Center, 22 percent of Americans expressed trust in a fair government. That’s up from only 16 percent in 2022. 

Recent cybersecurity findings suggest continued vulnerabilities in systems storing sensitive public records and legal documents. Another fear-inducing headline: A vulnerability in the state of Georgia’s voter registration cancellation portal, allowing malicious actors to disenfranchise swaths of voters, prompting widespread concern of collusion.

Renewed public interest in the mechanics of the electoral process, Tisler explained, is a positive shift, but creates rippling issues. “This is what elections are all about, participation,” he said. “But like with anything, you are also going to have people who use that information to cast doubt on the process.”

In pursuit of addressing those very actors, Tisler explained, government and election officials have focused more intensely on transparency, opening up voters to the logistics of running a nationwide vote. Some have invited residents into the physical spaces where they work, observing voting machine tests or visiting offices. Others have taken to social media, live streaming preparation and even counts. 

We are never wholly dependent on technology. We are never wholly dependent on humans.

Too much information, however, isn’t helpful without understanding, Tisler said. “People need context for what is happening,” he urged. “It’s not enough that you can see what is happening, if you don’t understand the actual steps that are taking place and why they are so important to holding a secure, accurate election.”

Meanwhile, advocacy groups and security experts continue to emphasize the importance of clarity and simplicity, beginning and ending with paper.

Don’t worry: Your vote will be counted.

Americans shouldn’t feel disinclined to vote in 2024 because of technological skepticism, said Tisler. “Without a doubt, the technology is much more secure, much more reliable, than it was even a decade ago,” he stated. In fact, according to the country’s cybersecurity leaders, they should have more confidence that this year’s election is safe from outside threats.

“It is your community who is running those elections. It is your neighbors. It is people who share so many of your values and your experiences,” said Tisler. “It’s those people who are stepping up to make this process happen. Sometimes, when there is a lot of passion, a lot of anxiety and tension, it’s often difficult to keep all that in perspective.”

Fears of voting machines and count accuracy, spurred by anti-computer comments like those of Musk, have grown to eclipse other election concerns. Attempts to undermine the election before ballots are cast, through mass disinformation campaigns, generative AI, or even the simple suggestion that our process can’t be trusted, have the potential to sow as much mistrust as a genuine cyberattack. Just as big of a risk: Threats of physical violence on election day. But integrity experts and federal officials, including the State Department, have been preparing for it all. And paper has remained an essential part of the process.

People should feel secure that their votes will be recorded fairly and accurately.

“Disinformation is a serious threat because so many people want to believe negative things about the other party,” said West. “Some officials spread lies to sow doubt and make people cynical about the political process. There also are foreign entities that have incentives to spread lies in order to disrupt American elections. They want to turn people against one another.” Meanwhile, West assures, “paper ballots are guarded night and day in order to maintain the integrity of vote counting. There are Republican and Democratic poll watchers who make sure the other party does not engage in any shenanigans.”

According to Verified Voting, a nonprofit focused on responsible voting technology and paper ballot advocacy, almost 70 percent of counties nationwide will use hand marked paper ballots for the majority of voters. Around 25 percent will use ballot marking devices, an electronic version of a ballot that creates a paper record and doesn’t store vote counts on the machine, often used for voters with disabilities. Only 5 percent of counties exclusively use DRE machines.

Only two states, Louisiana and Texas, contain counties with completely paperless voting systems. Election-deciding swing states —  Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — all maintain paper records, which are used in post-election audits in 48 states. Paper records include actual paper ballots filled out by hand, as well as printed paper ballots for voters to review after they place their vote on a machine. 

Voters can also learn about the specific machines and voting processes at their polling site ahead of the election. Verified Voting’s “Verifier” database provides a breakdown of the type of voting equipment used in each county. 

Tisler recommends concerned voters read through the center’s Roadmap to the Official Count, which explains the entire process in administering and validating a presidential election, step-by-step.

“The election process is a system of checks and balances,” reassured Tisler. “There is somebody who is constantly making sure that everything is working how it should. They’re checking, double checking, triple checking. We are never wholly dependent on technology. We are never wholly dependent on humans. The tech and the human component are working side by side the entire time.”