Automation has woven itself into the warp and woof of modern life, with people trusting algorithms to manage everything from banking to medicine to transportation. It’s difficult to imagine why anyone would even advocate for a return to manual counting in elections. Yet, as the 2024 presidential race draws near, pockets of the country are pushing for just that: hand-counting ballots. While this may seem like a throwback to a simpler time, the reality is that hand-counting is inefficient, error-prone, and dangerously outdated. Here’s why it’s a bad idea.
Humans Are Prone to Error
Hand-counting votes might seem like a logical solution, especially for small jurisdictions. But when scaled up to the size of a state or the entire nation, the problems become glaring. Research consistently shows that human error is a major factor when it comes to manual tallying. A study by Rice University found that when participants counted just 120 ballots by hand, they only got it right 58 percent of the time. Over 40 percent of the time, they made mistakes. Imagine such error rate applied to the millions of ballots cast in a presidential election. The result would be chaos.
In Nye County, Nevada, this nightmare did become reality. In 2022, the county clerk, Mark Kampf, an election denier, attempted to discard machine counts in favor of a "parallel" hand-counting effort. By the end of the process, Kampf admitted to a staggering 25 percent error rate in the hand-count.
Volunteers, many of whom had no experience with election processes, struggled to reconcile the tallying process. The delay in the process didn’t just cause frustration; it led to legal intervention, with the state Supreme Court stepping in to stop the hand-counting due to concerns over early vote leaks.
This episode wasn’t an isolated incident, but an eye-opening example of what happens when we expect humans to do a job that’s far better suited for machines.
The Time and Cost of Manual Counting
Hand-counting is also a costly and time-consuming endeavor. It’s a far cry from the efficiency of electronic systems. In Texas’ Gillespie County, a hand-count of Republican primary ballots stretched into a grueling 24-hour marathon with 200 volunteers working through the night. Despite their best efforts, the final tally was riddled with errors that required additional corrections. The cost? Double what it would have been for machine tabulation.
Shasta County, California, offers yet another cautionary tale. In 2022, officials there explored the idea of hand-counting ballots. But after a cost analysis, the plan was shelved. Hand-counting would have required more than 1,200 additional workers and cost the county an estimated $1.6 million — a price tag that made the process economically unfeasible for the
small county (population of 180,663). At the end of the day, manual counting isn’t just logistically infeasible challenge; it’s a financial burden on taxpayers as well.
The Perils of Slow Results
The risk with hand-counting isn’t just about errors or costs; it’s about the delays in announcing election results. Every moment that goes by without a clear outcome invites uncertainty and distrust. In a world where misinformation spreads like wildfire, the longer it takes to tally votes, the more time there is for conspiracy theories to take root. The prolonged process in places like Texas and Nevada only fuels this distrust, making it harder to maintain the public’s faith in the electoral system.
The slow pace of manual counting also makes it vulnerable to interference. In the Nye County example, where election officials failed to meet deadlines due to slow counting, early vote tallies were leaked — a situation that could easily compromise election integrity. The longer the process drags on, the more room there is for outside forces to sow doubt or confusion.
Why Machines Are Better
E-voting systems, which are already in place across the United States, offer a far more efficient and reliable alternative. These systems are designed to count ballots quickly and accurately, with much less risk of human error. In fact, these systems are regularly audited through post-election checks, where small samples of ballots are manually recounted to ensure machine accuracy.
Election officials have long known that human beings are not suited for tasks that require repetitive precision. Machines, on the other hand, excel in this domain, making them a far better choice for large-scale elections. A well-designed tabulation system can count ballots faster, more accurately, and at a much lower cost than any hand-counting process could hope to achieve.
The push to hand-count ballots is a misguided effort driven more by misinformation than by logic. While manual counting might work for a few small, local elections, scaling it up is a recipe for disaster. It’s slow, expensive, and riddled with human error — exactly the opposite of what we need in a fast-paced, high-stakes democratic process.
Machine tabulation isn’t just more effective — it’s the future of voting.
