BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) 鈥� All election ballots would be counted by hand under a proposal that could go to North Dakota voters, potentially achieving a goal of activists who distrust modern vote counting but who say the change would needlessly delay vote tallies and lead to more errors.
Backers of the proposed ballot measure are far from gathering enough signatures, but if the plan makes the June 2024 ballot and voters pass it, North Dakota would have to replace ballot scanners with hundreds of workers across the state who would carefully count and recount ballots.
It's a change other Republican-led states have attempted unsuccessfully in the years since former President Donald Trump began criticizing the nation鈥檚 vote-counting system, falsely claiming it was rigged against him.
鈥淲e鈥檝e always done hand counting before we got these machines," said Lydia Gessele, a farmer who is leading the effort to get the measure on the ballot. "They can find the people to do the job, because there are people that are willing to come in and do the hand counting.鈥�
Gessele said supporters were motivated by issues they claim occurred in 2022, including inaccurate ballot scanners and an electrical outage that prevented people in Bismarck from voting.
Former Secretary of State Al Jaeger, a Republican who oversaw North Dakota鈥檚 elections for 30 years through 2022, rejected Gessele's claims, saying, 鈥淭here was nothing that took place that would have changed the outcome of a vote. Nothing at all.鈥�
The North Dakota effort is aligned with a move ment among Trump allies who since 2020 . Without evidence, they cast the machines as suspicious and fraudulent. In some cases, they even in their efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
Earlier this year, Fox News with Dominion Voting Systems to pay $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought over statements broadcast by the network that Dominion machines were rigged against Trump.
The North Dakota ballot measure proposes all voting 鈥渟hall be done by paper ballots and counted by hand starting on the day of the election and continuing uninterrupted until hand counting is completed.鈥�
The move would make North Dakota the first state to mandate hand counts, shifting from the paper ballots and scanners used for most elections, according to , a nonpartisan organization that tracks states鈥� voting legislation.
The measure a process or funding for hand counts. The state pays for election equipment, but North Dakota鈥檚 53 counties are each responsible for poll workers and polling locations.
North Dakota Republican Secretary of State Michael Howe said he opposes the proposed measure because hand counts are less standardized than using scanners. He likened it to having a computer rather than a human umpire a baseball game.
鈥淲hen you hand-count, you bring in the human element of umpiring. You could have a wide strike zone, you could have a narrow strike zone,鈥� Howe said. "What you get with a machine is one consistent strike zone every single time."
Officials elsewhere in the country have struggled to implement hand-counting requirements. In Nye County, Nevada, officials in 2022 , but only after polls closed and along with a machine count. In California's Shasta County, officials from forcing a hand count for a Nov. 7 election.
Last year, 317 ballots by hand in Nevada's least populated county.
Legislators in at least eight states also proposed prohibitions, in some way, on ballot tabulators.
In April, Arizona Democratic Gov. vetoed a bill that effectively would have mandated hand counts 鈥渂y prohibiting the use of any known type of electronic tabulator." Arizona鈥檚 Republican-controlled Legislature passed a similar resolution, but it was .
Election officials in some of North Dakota's largest counties questioned the proposal.
Hand counting 鈥渟eems to be extremely error-prone,鈥� said Craig Steingaard, the election administrator for Cass County, the state's largest county.
鈥淚t would definitely be more difficult for us to administer these elections correctly and then efficiently, too,鈥� he said.
Grand Forks County Finance and Tax Director Debbie Nelson said hand counts must be done 鈥渞epeatedly to get the correct number. You can't do it once, and it takes you a very long time to do what the computer can do instantly."
The measure would allow any U.S. citizen to verify or audit North Dakota elections. The initiative also would mandate that 鈥渁ll voting will be completed only on Election Day,鈥� with allowance for absentee ballots mailed only for voters 鈥渨ho request one for a specific election in writing within a reasonable time period prior to Election Day." Mail-in ballots would be 鈥渙therwise prohibited.鈥�
Nearly 44% of voters participated by in North Dakota鈥檚 November 2022 election.
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Associated Press writer Gabe Stern contributed to this story from Reno, Nevada.
Jack Dura, The Associated Press
