Defenders Of Democracy

Full Report

For the August 8th runoff elections in Georgia, Defenders of Democracy conducted a parallel election at DeKalb County's Winnona Park precinct in Decatur.

The parallel election was conducted respectfully and in full compliance with State election law. The processes employed followed the registration, balloting and chain of custody practices required to ensure legitimate, verifiable and auditable results. Participating voters were formally qualified using a precinct poll book of official State voter registration records and they voted using paper ballots cast anonymously. Each voter deposited their ballot into a locked ballot box that remained in full public view at all times. All tabulation was conducted at the precinct site at the close of polls, again in full public view, with all procedures fully documented by paper records and video recordings. Tabulation was completed in a timely and orderly manner in accordance with accepted chain of custody requirements.

This data, while accurate, is best interpreted with consideration to the history of events that took place in the polling place that day. A more detailed analysis and report of the parallel election is pending and will provide a more complete perspective on the precinct results, including voting machine irregularities and other anomalies reported by voters.

The participation rate at 60% of votes cast within the precinct was good for a pilot project. Parallel Election poll workers spirits were kept buoyant throughout the long day by voters' ongoing positive comments on the parallel election, as well as their often-stated desire to bring transparency and accountability to the official election procedures in Georgia though the means we were using in parallel election, paper ballots.

Until Georgia's voters get their voting rights restored by bringing auditable paper ballots back into our official voting system, parallel elections remain the ONLY method to document computerized vote fraud at the the precinct level. We need your help to expand the parallel election project to your precinct and as many precincts as possible. Please volunteer by sending us a note regarding your availability for the upcoming parallel elections in November by clicking here, and please explicitly state that you are volunteering for the parallel election effort.

Thank you.