Zero cases of ballot stuffing, voter impersonation or election hacking. That’s the amount of rigging Delaware’s elections commissioner has seen over the past 17 years.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump has been sowing doubt in voters’ minds about the legitimacy of this year’s election.
But Delaware’s elections commissioner, Elaine Manlove, says you can rest assured the state’s elections are not rigged.
Let’s start with the prospect of hacking.
“In Delaware our results are all read from a cartridge that’s pulled from a machine, driven to a zone and read at the zone. And all the zones are within the state’s firewall,” Manlove said.
The only time the vote tallies hit the Internet is when they’re published.
But what about ballot stuffing?
It would be extremely difficult to get extra ballots even if you’re a poll worker. Ballots are tracked through barcodes from the time they leave the elections office until the time they return. When they're at the office they're locked in a secure room.
So what stops dead people from voting?
“We have a lot of ways of keeping our roles clean. Every month we get a list from Delaware's Office of Vital Statistics of people who have passed away in the state of Delaware. We immediately take those people off the roles,” Manlove said.
The Delaware Department of Elections also sifts through state obituaries daily.
It also uses the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)to compare election databases with other states to ensure someone isn’t registered in multiple places.
But what’s to stop someone from impersonating another voter since identification isn’t required?
You sign for a ballot when you vote. If that person who has been impersonated comes to vote later in the day they’ll see their vote has already been cast, then most likely report that fraud.
How many times has that happened?
“To be honest with you it’s never happened,” Manlove said.
But even with these safeguards and a perfect track record, claims of a rigged election seem to be creating a distrust of the democratic process.
A recent University of Delaware poll found that 60 percent of registered voters in the First State are concerned about the legitimacy of this year’s election.
