In Champaign County, the service election officials use to look up voter information went down for two hours. Polling places were unable to record votes during that time. This is a repeat of the same problem that happened in the 2022 election. The contractor responsible for maintaining that service both times was Platinum Technology Resource.
Just a few months ago, we learned Platinum Tech failed to password-protect their databases, leaking 4.6 million records including some SSNs associated with Illinois voters. I thought Illinois law requires business to inform consumers about the breach of their data. I didn’t get any notice; perhaps there are some caveats?
Does your county use Platinum Tech to manage their voter information? Did your county have issues on election day or was everything smooth?
We use paper vote, envelope and transparent box with people watching the whole voting process the whole day (with rotation). Some are neutral (any citizen living in the town can do it), some represent one candidate. Everybody observe the others and the voters. They count the amount of people who vote and will compare it later in the counting process.
For the counting process, in the same room, we put several table, the transparent box with all vote that nobody let unwatched is emptied on several tables and counted by group of people (neutral) and observed by anyone in the room (candidate representant, officials and anybody … i did it once after i voted… it was really well organized).
The result are counted several time by different people and amount are manually checked by everybody : amount of voter = sum of votes for one candidate + other candidates + invalid vote (paper with invalid mark, wrong size, wrong color, white paper, …) The results are also noted by at least two people that compare their total number each 10 results counted… Any deviation and you restart the current packet.
The sum of the sum are also checked and all the party (neutral, candidate representant, observers) must agree with the result. Then the head of the vote bureau will transmit the result to a dedicated and secured line at region level, who will also check the number with the official numbers of voter and will compile all the towns result give and report back at country level.
These numbers are also displayed in a dedicated website as soon they are received so we know the first result less that 2~3 hours after vote closure. The votes are then secured by a justice officer and be at disposal if a reclamation raise. We can also cross check the official numbers from the website with the one from our town. They always matches which is good!
No electronic counting, no postal vote (as we can’t be sure a husband voted for his wife), you have to vote in person without pressure from outside, everything can be checked by anybody without the risk of altering the result. We do that since centuries and our election have always been trusted by the population and the candidates.