Greater transparency increases voter confidence.
Lawrenceville, Georgia | The gutting of our electoral democracy has been occurring for years and can be found in reams of books and eyewitness testimony, but nowhere have voting rights been more severely impacted than in gerrymandered Georgia. Even the counting of legally cast votes has come under a variety of threats. In order to protect the vote count in the January 5, 2021 runoff, Scrutineers.org is dispatching the Georgia Poll Tape Squad to take pictures and videos of election poll tapes” posted at hundreds of Georgia voting locations. The squad’s sole goal is to verify the vote.
Poll workers have a long list of things to do to close down a polling site after the last voter leaves. One of those tasks is to print out poll tapes – election results – from each vote counting machine and post a copy outside the voting location accessible by the public. Taking photos/videos of these poll tapes is an important tool in election protection. These are uploaded immediately to cloud databases, where anyone can view them. This data can be compared to official Georgia Secretary of State results to see if any numbers changed. If discrepancies are found, investigation into why the vote totals changed is essential.
“We have selected priority precincts in Georgia to focus on, and I am excited about the work we will be doing on election night” stated Cheryle Renee Moses, Georgia Field Director for Scrutineers’ runoff 2021 initiative. “Getting poll tape videos and photos are simple acts that we can do here in Georgia to provide verifiable proof of voting precinct totals,” Moses continued.
Anyone concerned about the security of our elections can participate as a member of the Georgia Poll Tape Squad on election night. Volunteer and paid positions available for Tuesday night, January 5, 2021. Sign up at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScHJvQem9ElQ0i7h6lKhiqsSaH3_7jZh6xZQmaZHr9rdtXOyQ/viewform?usp=sf_link.
For more information on joining the squad and the initiative, contact Pamela today at 404.590.4716 or volunteers@scrutineers.org.
ABOUT SCRUTINEERS.ORG:
Scrutineers.org is a non-partisan organization working for fairness and accuracy in United States elections including the end of voter suppression. Scrutineers has partnered with Camrose Creative Services, Protect Our Votes’ Photo Finish project and Democracy Counts’ Actual Vote project for this initiative in Georgia.
