Chief Elections Officer says vote tampering won’t be an issue

Whenever an election approaches the topic of vote tampering and the confidentiality of the voting procedure invariably rears its head. Today on the morning show, Chief Elections Officer Ruth Meighan assured the public that they need not worry come Wednesday.

Ruth Meighan, Chief Elections Officer
“These ballots have numbers on them and it’s easy for reconciliation purposes because at the end of the day if I give you a hundred ballots, you have to give account of that hundred ballots. Whether twenty votes were cast or ten were spoilt, you have to give full account of those ballots. But there is no way, unless the presiding officer would write the number on something other than those papers that person has on them, can anybody tell which ballot paper you voted on.”

William Neal
“So they are not distributed in a sequential manner?”

Ruth Meighan
“It is but it is something that you will really have to sit on down and think. I have worked as a presiding officer and at the time I am not thinking of the number on that ballot paper and the person coming in and there would be no reason why—unless that person has some political motive. It is unfair to think that the public officer is actually doing that because we have officers out there, everybody is entitled to their own choice as to who they want to vote for, but when they are working on election day it is expected that they will continue to execute their duties impartially and in fairness to the person, so we don’t expect they will be looking at a number to see when you came in to vote. And then when it goes to counting, the returning officer or whoever is the counting clerk will have to look at that same ballot with that same number, so there would have to be some form of communication where they will call you and tell you “Ruth came in and her vote is on ballot paper number so on” … it just doesn’t happen because it’s during the counting then you will know how I voted. Other than that, it cannot be done.”

The polls open bright and early tomorrow at seven.