Continued Elections Issues Show Need for Increased Transparency

It has been more than 2 weeks since Election Day, but problems are still emerging with this year's elections. Most recently, problems have surfaced in Georgia, Nevada, and Michigan.

In Georgia, election administration issues led to miscounted ballots in several counties:

Missed memory cards caused initial vote counting errors in Douglas, Fayette and Walton counties. In Floyd County, election workers didn’t rescan about 2,600 ballots after replacing an optical scanner, he said. Initial reports that the problem in Floyd was related to a missed memory card weren’t accurate.

Those votes are being rescanned, counted and added to statewide totals.

In Nevada, allegations of a "cash for votes scheme" were reported by The Federalist in an article published earlier today. The alleged scheme took place in plain sight without elections officials saying anything about it:

Under the guise of supposedly nonprofit, nonpartisan get-out-the-vote campaigns, Native American voter advocacy groups in Nevada handed out gift cards, electronics, clothing, and other items to voters in tribal areas, in many cases documenting the exchange of ballots for “prizes” on their own Facebook pages, sometimes even while wearing official Joe Biden campaign gear.

Simply put, this is illegal. Offering voters anything of value in exchange for their vote is a violation of federal election law, and in some cases punishable by up to two years in prison and as much as $10,000 in fines. That includes raffles, free food, free T-shirts, and so on.

What happens when concerns are raised about lack of transparency? In Michigan, a Republican canvasser and her children were threatened by a state Representative-elect:

The Republican members of the Wayne County Canvassing Board initially voted against certifying the county's election results over concerns about voting irregularities.

It is abundantly clear that we need more transparency to increase confidence in our elections. It is crucial to maintaining the the open, fair, and honest nature of the U.S. election system.