With her non-partisan organization Scrutineers.org, Emily Levy wants everyone to know how they can help ensure fair elections in the United States.

Listen to Emily’s submission featured in Episode 43 of How Cool Is This?, republished as part of this daily election series for topicality, and read a transcript of the full episode below:

Emily: I'm Emily Levy, and I'm the Founder and Director of scrutineers.org. People can count votes from home, can actually count the real official votes. We can't trust computers to count our votes, and that's how votes are counted in this country. But in most of the country, people vote on paper ballots ,and this year when we're voting by Mail, even more people are going to be voting on paper ballots. 

And most of those are counted by machines that make a digital image of every ballot. So those images, that set of images, can be shared with the public, and a ca campaign, a community group, or even a group of friends can count the votes on those images to check the machine counts. 

So at scrutineers.org, the organization that I founded, we're training people how to do this, how to protect the elections in this way and more. There’s actually a whole bunch of things people can do without a ton of training from home. And also people need to become poll workers and we can help you know what to look for for signs of election fraud while you're working the polls. The whole country needs to be working together this year to make sure that everyone can vote and that the votes are counted accurately, and counting votes from home is one of the ways we can do that.

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to submit your idea to How Cool Is This?

Brian: Scrutineers, and I guess scrutiny on elections. How cool is this?

Nick: Elections have always been important, and election integrity is more important than ever, so I think that Emily’s organization and its focus on making sure the results are accurate is very cool.

Brian: It’s cool that she does it. It’s not cool that she has to do it.

Nick: Sometimes the coolest ideas come from uncool circumstances. It is cool that, while a lot of other people made the transition to working from home, we’re also figuring out a way to basically have elections from home.

Brian: Now I personally feel like it’s a bandaid on a gash, but that doesn’t mean it’s not stopping the blood.

Nick: What would be a more effective solution to that problem?

Brian: So the problem itself is that people are not as aware of how easy it is to manipulate their vote.

Nick: I think a lot of people out there believe that their vote, when counted, is going to be counted accurately.

Brian: Yeah, it’s kind of a divide between technology’s incredible and can make things so much faster, but with something like this, is there any way to make it trustworthy?

Nick: Well, I think what’s cool about what Emily’s doing is that she’s saying some technology isn’t trustworthy, but I’m going to harness technology in a way that gives the power to the people. Listen, I don’t know if you’ve seen The Matrix, but I do not trust machines.

Brian: I actually have not. I want to.

Nick: You know who’s cool? Neo, Keanu Reeves.

Brian: Is there anything about people in politics that’s cool?

Nick: Politicians generally aren’t very cool, but we still have the ability to vote and make our voice heard, and that’s always going to be cool.

Brian: If an election is a popularity contest, then theoretically the winner is cool. But if the winner is driven to succeed by that coolness rather than by something that they want to change, then that’s not cool.

Nick: A lack of authenticity from the people in power is never going to be cool. Brian, would you sign up to be one of these vote counters from home? It seems like a lot of pressure.

Brian: It seems like something that can only really have a downside if you have a selfish mentality. You know, if you were more altruistic, then it’s definitely worth doing.

Nick: If I mess up at my normal day job, I lose my paycheck and my health insurance and have more time to devote to this podcast. But if I mess up counting votes from home, I could potentially alter the future of this country.

Brian: And your life.

Nick: Having that kind of power and responsibility is a little bit scary. This idea seems to be coming from a place of seeking the truth.

Brian: I don’t think she’s bought or paid for.

Nick: That’s what makes it cool.

Brian: It’s cool to be heard, and it’s not cool to think you’re being heard and not be.

For more information on this topic, visit Scrutineers.org, and listen to Emily's podcast, the Scrutineers Series (in collaboration with WhoWhatWhy.org). She also says, "It would be good to credit AUDIT USA for their work on ballot image audits of elections."

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