The ECHO 65 Method

For Hand-Marked, Hand-Counted Paper Ballots in U.S. Elections

Article One, Section Four of the U.S. Constitution:

“The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.”

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Jumping right in to the concept, due to the acute need for a meticulously detailed process for hand counting hand-marked paper ballots which is both easy to understand and affordable to conduct.

When asking our representatives to make changes to modern election procedures, we can no longer trust them to create an auditable paper ballot system, we must tell them exactly what we expect. That is the ECHO 65 Paper Ballot Method found at texashandcounts.com, and developed in Gillespie County, Texas and deployed in the Gillespie County 2024 GOP Primaries.

Despite the process being maligned by media with an agenda, the results were accurate, auditable, affordable and secure from undue influence and improper practice via obfuscated computerized programming and hardware devices protected from public scrutiny under threat of breaking very expensive contracts.

The scales of influence have turned in recent years, shifting from a competitive buyer’s market to a nearly monopolized industry after the passage of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). Counties scrambled to obtain the latest and most efficient, modernized and computerized voting systems with the promise of reimbursement in the form of federal funds for updated systems. There being only a few voting system vendors, this lead to massive power and influence falling into the hands of the few vendors dominating the niche and newly fully computerized industry of a once auditable paper system.

Poll Books were printed out according to assigned polling locations and their associated voting precinct voter lists. This prevented anyone not in that Poll Book from casting a regular ballot at that location. HAVA now mandates provisional ballots for anyone not on the voter list, or whose eligibility is otherwise called into question, to cast a ballot while also allowing the county to confirm their eligibility through further investigation. This meant that once the voter is confirmed as a lawful voter in the county, their ballot is cast and counted.

The introduction of countywide vote centers came just after the push for computerized voting systems in each state. The new concept, which required electronic poll books connected to the internet, was sold as a convenience for voters to vote a regular ballot anywhere in the county, despite the aforementioned provisional ballot mandate being sufficient. Again, in order to allow voters to cast regular ballots at any given location and prevent duplicate voting, the voting system would require an electronic poll book, connected to the internet to track voter turnout live countywide. Luckily, the few approved voting system vendors, who had once all been a single company, had a solution prepared before the problem even identified itself.

HART Intercivics Verity Voting System, KNOWiNK, and ES&S have cornered the market in Texas and neighboring states, with Dominion Voting behind them in Texas. Dominion has repeatedly been expressly denied authorization for use in Texas elections after multiple applications to be authorized for use in Texas elections, for failing to pass basic security standards set by the state legislature.

Heider Garcia, without party or county oversight, struck a deal with HART Intercivics Verity Voting System and KNOWiNK to offer Tarrant County an electronic pollbook option with interoperability capabilities between the two company’s products. I restate, this offer was made prior to any discussion of countywide vote centers by the county election board or commissioner’s court, in a move based solely on the vendor’s (and Heider Garcia’s) anticipation of successfully convincing Tarrant County to finally eliminate countywide voting on election day. Almost one year after Heider made the necessary purchase of ePoll books from HART and KNOWiNK, he successfully convinced Tarrant County Election Board to eliminate the final guarantee for voting by secret ballot in your own precinct on Election Day. Countywide Vote Centers unnecessarily exacerbated the existing ballot secrecy issue with voting early countywide or by absentee.

To this day, if you are the only voter to vote in each location from your voting precinct, then your ballot will be visible and easily tied to you if all records for the election are made available to the public, as mandated by state and federal law.

Voting in-precinct, on Election Day was the last option for a voter to cast a secret ballot. Countywide Vote Centers must be repealed, and until that day all counties must opt out of the program and return to casting ballots by precincts as allowed by law. Texas residents should note that an attempt to amend last session’s HB 924 is underway to allow large counties to combine polling locations and back out of countywide voting using existing locations, ideally saving money on rent and staffing polling places in every single precinct.

All of that being said, ECHO 65 must be conducted by precinct. That means each voting precinct and all the voters therein must be assigned to the same polling location so that all ballots from a given precinct are cast together. This both ensures auditability and ballot secrecy, but also makes recounts much more affordable, time-efficient and trustworthy. Electronic poll books can be bound by precinct, which is how they were used in Tarrant County after purchasing but before the county moved to countywide voting.

Additionally, I have created a simple map and formula to quickly and easily redistribute voting precincts and their total number of voters to a nearby vote center. In my effort I was able to eliminate over twenty locations, and all Tarrant County voters are adequately served with just over half of our current Early Voting Locations.

I say all this in order to establish that without our ability to cast all ballots from a given precinct together, we cannot feasibly move on to a hand-counted paper ballot system. Assuming we are successful this legislative session in helping to facilitate the elimination of countywide voting, we should begin pushing the method described below.

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The ECHO 65 METHOD

I have reviewed this method briefly in a one-page endorsement, and this report serves to elaborate on the process, it’s divine simplicity, and the cost-saving benefits. As mentioned before, this method was developed in Gillespie County, Texas and all credit goes to the dedicated patriots working countless hours together to perfect this process.

ECHO 65, being dependent on precinct-level voting, begins with ballots printed for each precinct in the county. Whether polling places are located in each precinct, or the county combines precinct polling locations, ballots for each precinct are sent to their assigned polling locations to be hand counted after the close of polls.

Paper poll books requiring ink signatures from voters are the ideal method for checking in voters, but ePoll books can be bound to specific precincts, preventing anyone from casting a regular ballot in the wrong polling location. Anyone casting a ballot in a location which they are not assigned to must cast a provisional ballot, after being given the option to cast a regular ballot at the appropriate location near their home. A question has been raised as to whether a provisional ballot cast in such a way would be ineligible, and therefore not counted. This is not the case, as the Help America Vote Act prohibited any potential voter from being denied a ballot, at any location. If there is a question of a voter’s eligibility, the voter cannot legally be turned away, therefore the provisional ballot is the option for any voter casting a ballot in a location not assigned to their precinct. Therefore, a voter on the paper poll books/ precinct-bound ePoll Books, would cast regular ballots while voters not on these lists would cast provisional ballots to be counted later at the county’s central counting station.

The voting process would be conducted normally, much as it was prior to the implementation of computerized voting systems. So, we will jump to the close of polls for early voting. As the results for early voting cannot be released until the close of polls on Election Day, there will be no counting teams convened until Election Day. All Early Vote Ballots would most likely be delivered and secured under video surveillance at the county’s central counting station until Election Day. Poll Watchers are necessary to track the Chain of Custody for these ballots and all that process entails.

Next we will skip to the close of polls on Election Day. Upon the final voter casting the final ballot at a given location, the election staff will begin the transition into counting teams of five. These teams will remove ballots from ballot box, and arrange the ballots by precinct if there are multiple precincts assigned to the location. These ballots will be arranged into batches of fifty ballots. This is occurring at the polling location.

ECHO 65 involves new paperwork in the form of tally sheets, batch reports, and final reports per location. Tally sheets allow counting teams to fill in the race and candidates in the ECHO 65 fifty-ballot batch tables. These batch tables have a space for the race, candidates names, and fifty pre-numbered tally boxes extending from each candidate’s name for each race.

A team of team of five election staffers will handle the tallying process; a caller, an observer to the caller, and three counters, one of which is the “Echo” of the caller. Once the counting team has accurately filled out the tables, the team will begin to tally their first batch of fifty ballots.

The caller begins with the first race on the ballot, calling out the name of the selected candidate. The observer to the caller visually confirms the accuracy of the caller’s reading, while the counters strike the first box next to the selected candidate’s name. When this occurs, the counter who is also the “Echo” of the caller, repeats the caller’s word (candidate’s last name) along with the number above the tally box marked off.

For example: Caller calls out the first race being counted, “Tarrant County Sheriff,” and all three counters record that on their tally sheet for the first race, with the Echo repeating the caller. Caller then calls out the selected candidate “Waybourn,” for that race on the first ballot pulled. Because this is the first ballot counted for that race, the Echo repeats the caller plus the number of the tally box, “Waybourn - One,” and all three counters strike a diagonal line through that numbered box to the side of the candidate’s name. Caller then places that ballot face-down in another stack to the side. The next ballot is pulled by the caller and the selected candidate is read aloud, “Waybourn,” while the Echo repeats the name and the number on the next box, “Wayborn - Two,” while all three counters draw a diagonal strike through the next box. Caller will pull the next ballot and call out that selected candidate, “O’Rourke,” and the Echo repeats the name along with the number on the first box next to their name, “O’Rourke - One,” denoting the first vote tallied for that candidate in that batch. Undervotes are also denoted to be factored in to the tally sheet as ballots processed but left blank for that race. Overvotes, which are votes cast for two candidates in a race, effectively cancel each other out, resulting in another ballot without a selected candidate. These are also tracked on the tally sheets. With three counters recording what the Echo repeats, each vote is simultaneously triple verified, along with the batch totals for each race.

Once each race in the first batch of fifty ballots is tallied, the totals for each candidate for each race for that batch are totaled and recorded on the same tally sheet. After confirming that all three counters have the same totals per candidate recorded, the batch report is set aside for the next batch of fifty ballots from that location for that race.

The counting team only moves on to the next race once all votes for the preceding race are called, tallied, counted, totaled and triple-confirmed.

When each race in each batch of fifty ballots are called, tallied, counted, totaled and triple-confirmed, the report for that location are compiled by totaling batch reports. These reports are then signed, sealed and delivered with the sealed ballots to the county’s central counting station.

Finalized reports, ballots, poll books, and all other associated materials will be handled much the same way as with current voting systems, sealed and tracked through strict chain of custody procedures and sequentially numbered seals. The accuracy and security of ECHO 65 lies in the triple-verified results counted in small-batches of sequentially pre-numbered paper ballots.

Triple-verified totals come from the three counters in the ECHO 65 counting team. Counting in small batches allows for simplified, speedy identification of discrepancies by batch. Sequentially pre-numbered ballots, as opposed to ballots without identifying ranges, prevents the insertion of fraudulent ballots without detection.

ECHO 65 eliminates the need for ANY internet or other network connection at polling locations. It offers voters of all backgrounds and education levels the ability to fully understand the process and easily identify and resolve discrepancies while preserving precinct records for speedy recounts and audits.

Associated costs would include printing the necessary forms, staffing election day polling locations with a five-person counting team able to count all ballots in that location beginning at 7pm, and one at the county’s central election office for counting early votes and mail-in ballots. All machines for polling locations could be eliminated.

After conducting a basic cost-benefit analysis based on current reported costs of elections in Dallas County, eliminating all costs of modern voting other than renting locations and paying election staff, covering the basic costs of ECHO 65 could save counties the size of Dallas an average of nearly half a million dollars per election.

ECHO 65 is already approved for use in Texas Elections by the Texas Secretary of State’s office, and the greatest selling point is the simplicity of the entire process. Counting teams are not required to be certified in computer sciences, or electronic afficionados in order to understand the entire election process and participate with confidence. Endorsed by everyone who witnesses a live demonstration, this is the very method Texans must unify behind. A unified front is how we ensure our voices and demands are heard and therefore considered by those with the power to make these changes.

Restating the need for counties to cast ballots by precinct as best they can with their existing locations, which will require a minor legislative change from a bill passed last session. ECHO 65, or any other hand-counted paper ballot method, necessarily must be conducted by precinct for feasibility and simplicity. This means the county must return to precinct level voting prior to, or in the same motion adopting ECHO 65.

See the next TBTR Strategies article “The Case for Voting by Precinct” to see the mapping formula we have developed to help you work with your county to immediately return to casting ballots by precinct, using exsisting polling locations, and still serve all voters fairly.

Please visit texashandcounts.com as the original website for ECHO 65, and sign the pledge at MyVoteCountsinTexas.org to show support for backing out of countywide voting, returning to voting by precinct, and otherwise securing Texas elections this legislative session. Call your House and Senate Representatives and ask them to cosponsor or otherwise support the advancement of upcoming legislation allowing for the return to voting by precinct and other critical election security measures for all Texas counties.

Stay tuned for reports and updates with information on specific bills advancing these measures from TBTR Strategies and TBTX.

Thank you for your support and continued dedication to preserving our constitutional, representative, republican form of government.

Aubree

Founder

TBTX Takingbacktexas.org

TBTR Strategies tbtr.us

“I was born for the storm, and a calm does not suit me.” - President Andrew Jackson