Understanding Election Security and the Voting Process

This is the Truth Network. Kingdom pursuits, where you hear from ordinary people instilled with an extraordinary passion. Together, we explore the stories of men and women who take what they love and let God turn their passion into kingdom pursuits.

Now, live from the Truth Booth, your host Robbie Dillmore. You know, you would think that after that, this would be Robbie Dilmora, but we would be wrong. Robbie is on break, and he's asked me, Bill Mixon, to fill in for him. And I had a wonderful show for us. Tim Suji is the executive director of the Board of Elections in Forsyth County.

He's been here a long time.

Some of you may know Adam Draper. He's been a guest on many of the shows. Adam. Was a good friend of mine, and he was one of the members over the board of elections, and he just thinks. Tim is spectacular, and they talked me into becoming a judge at the election time.

It seemed a whole lot better than being an observer. And the more I got involved, the better I felt about our election process, particularly in Forsyth County. Tim, I don't think the folks know exactly what the Board of Elections is and what they do. Would you please share with the audience what you? Think they should know.

Well, first off, thank you for having me on, Bill. Yeah, so the Forsyth County Board of Elections is responsible for conducting and administering all the elections for this county here in the state of North Carolina. The the state law tasks all 100 counties to conduct their very own elections through their Board of Elections office, and and some so for a structural standpoint. The state of North Carolina has a state board of elections with a five-member bipartisan team of members that have direct oversight of the elections process, and and then it trickles down to the counties where the counties have their own five-member board to have oversight.

Now, my responsibility as the director of elections is is to handle the administrative piece, while the board has the quasi-judicial. Oversight authority to to make sure that the elections are conducted appropriately and and by law, in in the respective county.

Well, how do they get to be on that board?

So, county board members are appointed.

So, four of the five board members are appointed by the state board of elections, and the board chair for the county board of elections is appointed by the state auditor. All five members. Serve two-year terms. The members of the state board are appointed by the state auditor, and they serve two-year terms as well. And so, like you alluded to, Adam Draper was one of our former board members, and he had served multiple terms with us.

and And I had the the privilege to serve alongside with him, and it it Their responsibility is to ensure that, as myself and my team are responsible for the operational piece of the elections, they will have oversight of that and make sure. And and ultimately, they are responsible for certifying the results of the elections in our county. And my understanding is, if there's a provisional ballot, if there's any questionable. Vote cast that that's the group that looks at it and says hmm there's a thumbs up or a thumbs down that is correct so provisional votes are it's it's part of federal law that enables for voters if for whatever reason we can't find their voter registration information in the books or if there's a question about their registration or a question about where they live or their party affiliation. They, this is it's a it's a form of safeguard voting where they're still offered a a ballot.

It's just in the form of a provisional ballot, and then ultimately it's the five member board that will decide whether that provisional ballot will count or not, based on the research that the staff does, along with provisional ballots. The board is also responsible for counting and approving all the absentee by mail ballots.

So here in North Carolina. We do have no excuse absentee by mail voting, where any registered voter can request an absentee ballot from their respective county board of elections. But when their when those ballots are brought back, the staff will do preliminary review to make sure that the necessary voter signature is provided, that a photocopy of their photo ID is provided, or an ID exception form is provided. And the two in North Carolina for absentee voters, we also require signature from two witnesses.

So, two people have to witness the voter filling out the ballot. They don't have to see what who they're voting for, but they have to at least observe that the voter filled out the ballot themselves, placed it inside the envelope, and it was the voter themselves that signed the back of that envelope. And we'll. Need the address, the name, address, and the signatures of those two witnesses provided. In lieu of the two witnesses, an absentee voter could get a notary to notarize and witness and notarize the back of the envelope in lieu of the two witness requirement.

So those are the things that staff will will double check on a preliminary review, and and then we will then. Pass it along to the board for their final review and disposition.

So ultimately, they will decide based on whether all the requirements are met, whether an absentee ballot will count or not.

Now let's step back and who we've got. How many people on the the board? It's six. It's five members. Five members, bipartisan.

And who specifically? Chose those people to be on the board.

So for four of the five members, they're nominated by the local parties.

Okay.

Okay.

Two two from each party, and then those names, those nominees, are submitted to the state board of elections for them to ultimately appoint those four members. But then, with as with regards to the board chair. That individuals nominate that individuals appointed by the state auditor, and so. Yeah, and and they make they sort of make up the the fifth member of the board as the chair of the board.

So you've got at least two Democrats, at least two Republicans overseeing everything that the board of election does. They can ask whatever questions they want, and they can say, "Tim, give us the details on this, that, and the other thing," and they have the final word on what's appropriate and what's not. And there's a whole bunch of state. Federal laws behind the scenes, making sure that all the Ts are crossed and all the Is are dotted. That's correct.

Okay, and I've got to say, all the people that have served on that board, that have worked with you, have always said unbelievably wonderful things about you and your staff. And it has amazed me. It is like setting up a a battle to get all the different parts and pieces in place when they're supposed to be. Would you talk a little? Bit about what is involved before we start casting the first vote.

Great question.

So the biggest misconception about the folks that work at the Board of Elections is they think that we only work one day out of the year. They're like preachers. Yeah.

So that it's that's not the case. We our our office is a it's considered a county department. We are a county agency, part of the county government. Even though we're under the state government. Umbrella, but we we are operational year round.

We're open. Our office is open Monday through Friday from eight to five. We're handling voter registration because folks are whether they go to the DMV and they want to register to vote through the DMV or update their registration because they've moved to a different address or a different county.

So we're we're We're handling voter registration year-round. We have a division in our office that handles campaign finance and candidate filing.

So candidates have to come through our office to file for office if they want their name to appear on the ballot.

So we have a division that handles that along with the campaign finance reporting.

So. Anyone that wants to run for office or is elected and wants to continue to raise and spend money, those report those reports are filed to our office, and we handle the auditing of those reports. We also handle poll workers and polling places. We have to get those ready for each election. Thank you so much for sharing.

When we get back, we're going to talk about how everything set up the morning that I go in there to start as a judge. That, miraculously, all these machines just happened to be there, and that all the records. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Welcome back to Kingdom Pursuits. This is Bill Nixon filling in for Robbie Dilmor, and I have the great pleasure of having Tim Sergi, our Executive Director of the Board of Elections, here with me this morning.

And I'm going to say to you, I think everybody. Should go and cast an informed vote. Particularly Christians or anybody else that has a strong belief in the way the system should run should show up and cast an informed vote. Also say to you, I'm not absolutely sure that every single. Ticks should be cast.

I don't always vote for somebody when I don't know any of the people running, but I always know enough about most of them to be able to pull a lever, and that takes a lot of work. How many? How many workers do you need in one precinct?

So. In this upcoming election, on average, we need between four to five workers. But in some precincts, the larger ones, we'll have in the upwards of eight or nine. And how many precincts in this one county? In Forsyth County, we have a hundred and eight precincts on election day.

So my math skills are not what they were at one time. How many people total do you need in all those different precincts to make an election work? It's between seven hundred to eight hundred workers. And you got people knocking on your door every day, crying, saying, "I really want to earn two hundred bucks. Will you please let me go to work for you?" That's correct, and and we're still taking folks' names in.

We we need all the help we can get, even if if we're full right now. We still have a standby pool of emergency judges that, because you know, until between now and election day, folks may have family situations. You're not full right now, are you? We we are full. Oh, wonderful!

We are full. Excellent. But folks are still dropping out, or there's changes in their schedule or their plans, and so that's why. We're still accepting names so that we can offset those vacancies.

Now, you know, one of the reasons that I became a judge was I wanted to make sure there was at least one right-thinking person in each one of the. And you know, I don't care whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. Every single precinct needs at least one of each, so that when we're in the community, we can say, "I promise you, at least in my precinct, nothing strange." Happened. Everything went just the way it was supposed to, and you know some of the finest people I've met have been other people working in the precincts.

Now, with that said, there's a few questionable folks that had their heart in the right place, and it can be a very interesting. How many hours do I have to work? It's thirt. It's a 13-hour day on election day. Yeah, I got to say, I'm a little bit nicer person to be around the first.

Six than I am the last two, but I'm working on that.

Well, Bill, can I just say everything you just said is the perfect reason for why you should sign up to work. If you've got questions about the voting process or uncertainties, That is the the prime reason why you should sign up because that is truly the best way to see firsthand and learn firsthand the elections process.

Now, personally, I went in with questionable thoughts when I started, but absolutely nothing I saw in my precinct over the last five times I've done this. Caused me any questions at all, except maybe a few things I did by mistake. And there were plenty of people that I could reach out to to make sure that the mistake was undone. It's a little complicated to be on the information desk because that's when something has not quite gone right.

Some of the reasons that get sent to me is. I'm in the wrong place, so would you share some of the reasons that I might show up in the wrong place to cast a vote? Yeah, so oftentimes voters will move to a different address within a county or from out of county, and you may have not updated your voter registration.

So that's all handled at the help desk, like you were mentioning. There could be situations where there's a discrepancy regarding your. Voter registration, maybe a typo or something of that nature. You mean just because I moved out of state for six years and was voting in that other state, and I'm now back? Yeah, I was supposed to do something.

That's right. That's right. There could be instances where you may not have the necessary photo ID to be able to vote, and so you'll be offered a provisional ballot, or that question could be resolved at the help desk.

So you mean if I moved and my driver's License, you know, I I just didn't get a new driver's license. That that address has now got the wrong. That might send me over to the information desk.

So that won't necessarily send you to the help desk because in North Carolina, with regards to the photo ID, and I'm glad you brought this up, we're not required to check for the address on the ID. the The purpose of the photo ID law is proof of identity.

So we're going to check the name. On the ID as well as the picture to determine that there's near resemblance of the picture to the person that's standing in front of you, as well as the name on the ID matches reasonably to the name on their voter registration. And the reason why I say reasonableness of name is because oftentimes folks get married and they have to change their name. Or now go into some detail on that. Stretch that.

If I didn't take I took my wife's name and I didn't update my driver's license, so the records are a mismatch. What happens in that case? Yeah, so the law states it's it the terminology they use is substantial equivalence of name.

So take for example, let's say on your ID it says John Stanley Smith.

Okay, I'm just using that as an example, but in the voter registration it shows up as John Stanley Franklin. But there's near resemblance there because the first name and the middle name matches with what's in the voter registration, and then we're also looking at the picture, right? And if the picture is reason it reasonably resembles you, then you take all of that into equation and you determine that there is a match.

So if a young lady hyphenates her name, right, or she puts her maiden name in the middle, that's right, then that those It's not going to be. I mean, it's going to be questioned a little bit, but they're going to be able to cast a regular ballot. That's correct.

Now, if I changed my first and my last name when I got married, we're going to run into a few issues, and they're going to end up at the help desk. That's right. And what happens at the help desk?

So, for a situation like that, where there's a question about a voter's ID, the law requires that the chief judge and two judges convene, and they all three of them. Look at the ID together and determine whether they they see a match to the voter or not. If if they cannot unanimously, I take that back. If if one of them determines, yeah, there is a match.

So all it takes is one of the three judges to determine that there's a match, then that voter can proceed in casting a ballot. But if all three judges unanimously say no, there is not a match, then they're offered a provisional ballot.

So if Jane Doe gets married to Bob Smith, and she doesn't change her driver's license. But she also hasn't changed her face. As long as the picture on the driver's license and her first name match, as she explains, I got married six months ago. There's a high probability that that vote's going to go right on through. That's correct.

Now we're a call-in show, and if you've got some questions, you can call eight six six. Three four eight seven eight eight four eight six six three four eight seven eight eight four, and I think that you have heard some things from the. Person I would go to in Forsyth County for truth that totally contradicts a whole lot of the stuff that I've read on Facebook, which amazes me that anything on Facebook would not be true. But in this case, we have heard some truth that doesn't match some of the rumors that are swirling out around there. I would like everybody to feel very comfortable that when they cast a vote, that that vote is going to be counted, and I've got.

To say I've been drilled over and over and over again, never to say don't fill in a provisional ballot. There's a high likelihood the provisional ballot will count, but I, as the help desk judge, have no right to say up or down whether you should or should not cast the vote and whether it will or will not count. I do have to say that it's amazing to me how many people don't realize that they were supposed to do something before they showed up, and most of the challenges I've had have been. There were a couple of elections ago when I think I had twenty five people come in and say, "Did I need to register before I got here?" And even those people were allowed to cast a provisional vote, even though there was a wink wink involved in that. I do need to do something before I show up and cast my vote.

Correct? Absolutely, that's right. If whether you're moving from out of state into North Carolina into Forsyth County, you Always have to re-register to vote, or whether you're moving within the county, you have to update your voter registration. But the the good thing is, convenience is offered to voters where if you if you miss the voter registration deadline, which by the way was was this past Friday, yesterday, you you can still update your voter registration during early voting or even on election day. It's what we call precinct transfer.

So they'll show up. Those those voters will show up at the help desk, Bill, and you'll be the one to redirect them to their correct precinct or offer them a provisional ballot.

Now, if you've never done that in North Carolina, if you're not registered anywhere in the state, please do it by phone. You know, you pick up the phone and you can call the Board of Education, Board of Election, and say, "What do I need to do to be able to get my records updated?" I'd much rather you go to their main office or not do it in that mad rush that we're going to have with all those other nice people standing there, sitting in a chair, waiting for me to get to them, fill out all that paperwork. But if you do show up, Hopefully, whoever's doing that's going to put a smile on and say these are the things that we need to get you all squared away. You also may come to my desk, and I might say, you know, you're supposed to be two churches down the street, and I really, really, really would appreciate you taking this piece of paper and going down to that precinct down the street. I will even call ahead and say you get to butt in line and jump in the front so that your paperwork will go through.

Through smoother and be an easier transition, and that you might remember next time exactly where you're supposed to show up. But the important thing is show up and vote, and take two friends with you. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com. Good morning. Thank you for tuning into Kingdom Pursuits.

This is Bill Nixon filling in for Robbie Dilmore. Tim is the chair, the executive director of the board of elections in Forsyth County. And sometimes some of the best parts of the show are during the commercials. I wish I could play back the last five minutes of our discussion because I've got some friends that I am a little bit concerned about, but. They're really worried about whether the votes all get cast the right way.

Two of the big issues that come up in these interesting discussions was that in previous years you could have lived in France all your life, that you'd never spent more than a few days in North Carolina, and just because one of your parents had once been a North Carolina citizen, you had the right to cast a vote, mail it in. And in the last election, there were a whole lot of those where nobody checked who they were. There wasn't a copy of a driver's license coming in with the vote, and that frustrated a lot of people. And that problem has been fixed. Correct him?

Yeah.

So. But even prior to the recent law change, even overseas voters have to register to vote, and they had to provide either the last four digits of their social security number. That was to register. It was when they cast the vote. You cannot cast the vote without being registered to vote.

But they didn't happen at the same time.

So you had the registration six months ago, and then when you came in and you cast the vote, you didn't have to provide that information the second time. In order to register, you had to provide all. It's no different than registering to vote as a civilian voter here domestically.

So you have to be registered to vote in order for us to send you an overseas ballot. The the recent law change, what it did was, here in North Carolina, was to essentially signify that if you never ever lived in the United States.

So a perfect example, I'm if. If I was a child of missionary parents, and so my my folks went overseas to become missionaries, and I was born overseas, and not having been born in the United States on United States soil, and have always maintained my residency overseas, but because I'm a child of U.S. citizens. That that makes me an overseas voter, okay? And so when I become of age, when I turn eighteen, I still have to register to vote to be able to get an overseas ballot.

And so the the recent law essentially says that you now, because you had never lived in domestically in the United States, you're classified as what what they call the law states as never residents. You you you cannot you can vote an overseas ballot, but the or Take that back! You you cannot vote a ballot here here in the United States, and so that was what the recent law change did.

Okay, the other folks that make my head spin a little bit are concerned that. Once all the information gets to downtown Winston Salem from all the different precincts, I am one hundred and ten percent sure that those votes are ninety nine point nine percent clean. They have been double checked by a room full of people that have taken an oath, and they're being paid really big bucks to be there and make sure that everything runs smoothly in the board in the voting booth and a. Set of tapes. I think it's four set of tapes.

That's right. Come out, and whoever wants one of those tapes has access to them. I know that one set we generally try to get sent off to the party headquarters. Then one set's got to go in with one employee. I'm the first employee that gets to leave the building, and I have to promise I won't stop by Hardee's on the way there.

And I take the computer chip. I take a paper run, and I give that information to. He's got the most lovely staff of ladies. It's just absolute. He he's a genius.

If you saw the people he hires, not only are they efficient and smart and professional, some of them are. And you give the paperwork to them, and then thirty minutes later, the chief judge comes and duplicates the information.

So all the way up to the time that the information gets to the board, I'm absolutely sure those numbers are ninety nine point nine. Nine percent correct, and then they've got a room full of people. That the chairman of the Republicans and the chairman of the Democrats have said, "We got two people there looking after what everything's being done, and all those information gets checked in and put into a computer. And then hourly, how often does your computer send the updated information to Raleigh? We're we're uploading the results as they're coming in on a rolling basis, and the vote tabulation software is." That we use is a standalone computer.

It is not connected to the internet. It cannot be. And so, as we're tabulating the results in that system, and then copying the results, so we're taking blank USB thumb drives to copy over the results into a network computer because that's how we got to publicize the results on online, right?

So we and so we take that copy on on a thumb drive and upload it into the state. Elections result portal, but we're not reusing that same stick because it's just it's already touched the network computer. We're then taking a brand new blank stick to copy the next set of results over. That's what's called airgapping. That is how we're maintaining the security of the election results by never connecting the network computer to the standalone vote tabulation software.

You mentioned earlier the voting. Machines itself, the tabulators out at the precincts—they're standalone. They cannot be connected to the internet. There, there's no Wi-Fi. Capable.

You would have to have physical access to the machine itself to, uh, to to tamper with the device. Here in the state of North Carolina, we have a certification program. No voting machine company can sell their products without going through that certification program. And one of the testing is for that internet connectivity. That it it is not connected.

How many vendors do you have to choose from, and do you choose them, or does each county have its own, or does the state say this is the vendor that everybody uses? How does that work?

So vendors have to go through that certification in order to sell their product.

So here in North Carolina, there's two two vendors that did get that past the certification, and so the voting machine company that we in Forsyth County are using is Elections. Systems and software, ESNS, and so also besides the the state certification, North Carolina requires that it also goes through a federal certification before they could be sold here in North Carolina. One last thing I want to touch on about voting machines is that a lot of folks don't know about is we have to go through what's called a logic and accuracy testing of all the voting machines before each election. It is required.

So somebody opens them up, peeks into. Them hooks up something to them, and they make sure that they're operating just the way they're supposed to. What we do is we generate test ballots, okay, with a sequence pattern of votes. It could be a one-two, one-two test vote pattern. For this election, it was a two-four, two-four, and we ran those test ballots through the tabulators, and then print the results tape with the expectation that the results matches that vote pattern of two-four, two-four.

So, in other words, can Candidate A supposed to get two votes. Candidate B supposed to get four votes, so forth and so on. And so we're doing that full test. It's almost like doing a recount even before an election.

Okay.

Now let me get this in my head. I come in, I sit down, I'm given a piece of paper, I mark it, I walk it over, stick it into a machine. It's read. You save the paper copy, and the computer does a running tally. At the end of the night, it prints out on a thumb drive.

What the running tally was, and then the computer saves that information, and all the paper copies are still there. The paper copies and what's in the computer follows me down with my thumb drive to the. Board of Elections. The Board of Elections use my thumb drive to do a primary copy of what all the results are, and you send that information on a separate computer to Raleigh so that they can calculate what's going on as it goes. And then, over a period of time, you run all those paper ballots through again.

So, in North Carolina, we are required to do a mandatory hand to eye audit or recount of. A random sample of ballots of a precincts. It's a three percent random sample. The state board of elections randomly selects three precincts for us to have to do a physical hand recount of all those ballots after each and every election.

So I'm absolutely sure that once my Forsyth County Board of Elections runs all the numbers, that those numbers are correct. And there are a few friends I know that are a little bit concerned in the transfer of information. From there to Raleigh, and we come back. We'll talk about that just a little bit. You're listening to the Truth Network and TruthNetwork.com.

Welcome back. We're so appreciative you turn tuning in to this station and particularly this show. This is Kingdom Pursuits, and Tim Sergi is the executive director of the Board of Elections in Forsyth County. I had all kinds of concerns about elections, and a good friend of mine who was on the board talked me into instead of. Observing, and I encourage you if you're not a judge to to consider observing, to go in and to be one of the judges.

And the more questions I asked, the better answers I got, and the more assured I was that everything was up and up. We want to make sure that people know that you can vote early, especially if you're a judge. It did work well.

Well, to to cast it once you, everybody can go show up somewhere and cast an early vote. Win, Tim.

So early voting starts on October 15th through the. Early voting starts on October fifteenth.

Next, this coming up Thursday, and runs through the thirty first. We have fourteen locations spread across the county for early voting. Any eligible registered voter can vote at any of the early voting sites. I mentioned earlier about the voter registration deadline. For folks that miss that deadline here in North Carolina, we do offer same day registration and voting, but only during the early voting period.

And you will need to provide an ID. With your name and current Forsyth County address, it could be a utility bill, a bank statement, some sort, a legal document. But you'll also need to bring that in addition to your photo ID, so that you can also cast your ballot.

So if you haven't registered yet, you can up until the day before the final. Opportunity. The day of elections, if you come in and you have not registered in North Carolina somewhere, you really need to take care of that and go have breakfast somewhere instead of coming and sitting in front of my desk. If you come and sit in front of my desk, we're going to offer you a provisional ballot, and we're not going to say to you, "I'm so sorry." The law says that all we can do is update your record.

So you have, if you haven't registered yet, the opportunity. To do so, if you go in and vote early. That's right. That's right. It's conceivable if you've registered somewhere else in the state, not in your county, you're absolutely fine.

You should just go in and do it, and make sure you explain it. Explain if I've moved in the last thirty days versus I haven't moved in the last thirty days. How does that complicate things?

So, in the state of North Carolina, voter registration is based on thirty-day residency law. Based on where you lived 30 days prior to election day, and so if you were living in Mecklenburg County 30 on October 4th, then that is the that is the county that you have to vote at. But however, if you moved into Forsyth County before October 4th. Because you've lived here long enough, you are now eligible to vote here. But if you miss that voter registration deadline, then you need to come in during early voting so you can take advantage of same-day registration and voting, and and and you'll be able to cast your ballot.

So if if you move less than thirty days, so after October fourth, then you have to vote based on your previous address. And so if that happened to be, you know, in in a different county, then you have to. Go back to that former county, or or based on your old precinct or old address.

Okay, so if I moved here two days ago, and I've got proof that I moved here two days ago, if I show up early, I can still have my vote counted. That's correct.

Now, what proof must I bring with me to make that work? Yeah.

So, as I mentioned earlier, you do have to present a form of ID with your name and current Forsyth County address on that ID. It could be a utility bill. A bank statement, any legal government document with your name and current address. It could be your driver's license if you got it renewed or updated. Again, the two key pieces of information is your name and current Forsyth County address has to be presented.

Okay, so if you don't have that piece of information, all we can do is update it. The vote's not going to count. We'll give you a provisional ballot, and we'll do the necessary research on the back end because it could have been you did go to the DMV, and the DMV may have not transmitted that data to our office in time.

Okay, there's a good point.

So you can connect with the Department of Motor Vehicle and double check. That's correct.

But you're far better off taking your driver's license with you. Then now, if you go early, then you've got to show up at the Board of Elections to prove. That you are who you say you are. That's only if you don't present the necessary ID at the polling place. You'll then have to vote a provisional ballot at the polling place and then show up at the Board of Elections.

If you vote early, if you don't vote early, then that's that's not going to work.

Well, it could also apply on election day.

So if you show up to vote on election day and you vote a provisional ballot, but don't have to have the necessary photo ID, right? Let's say you are already a registered voter, your Properly registered, you just don't have that ID with you when you show up to vote. You can vote a provisional ballot with the intent to come to the Board of Elections that day. You have up to five days, five business days after Election Day.

Okay, good, wonderful. Um, electronically, after all the information's transmitted to Raleigh, uh. Do you go back a month later or a week later and say, "Here's our our actual numbers," and we want to compare it with the numbers that the state we have? We are required by law to do that within ten days after election day. That's called canvass.

Tim, we're so glad you were here. You've cleared up a whole lot of things. I wish we could have shared this with all the folks running around with their hair on fire. I am convinced that in Forsyth County, things are. Handled wonderfully well, thanks to Tim and our board.

And I'm pretty sure that everything in Raleigh's handled very well. Go vote. Take two friends with you. Be sure we have.