The “big lie” has unfortunately impressed on many that by hand-counting ballots fraud can be curtailed. This article by Amber Phillips published by The Washington Post tells us why hand-counting ballots is such a bad idea.  Here is an excerpt:

There’s a small but forceful push in right-wing circles to have ballots in upcoming elections entirely counted by hand. Lawmakers in at least six states have proposed switching to hand-counted paper ballots, The Washington Post’s Rosalind Helderman, Amy Gardner and Emma Brown report.

The idea is derived from accusations, made out of whole cloth, that the 2020 election was stolen — and that voting machines are easily hacked and can’t be trusted.

That’s false. Voting machines have been proved safe and accurate, especially when combined with audits to check their accuracy. And tallying results without machines could open up future elections to more chaos, even fraud.

Read the full article here. Also see related Democracy Chronicles articles like those on Voting Methods, Direct Democracy, and definitely checkout our main Voting Methods section.