Whether you’ve been following the completed ballot storage box tape soap opera or not, this is excellent news. After a meeting with activists, the Secretary of State’s Office has decided to switch to the tape recommended and demonstrated by New Hampshire citizens.
Here is the text in the image if it is hard to read.
As follow-up to our meeting and our subsequent emails/voicemails, I wanted to let you know our office placed an order for tamper evident tape to distribute to city and town clerks for use in the November election. I appreciate your recommendation and approval of NovaVision and their EST2R-177 tape. This is the tape we decided to purchase based on testing it on one of our election boxes using our instructions on sealing ballot boxes after an election. Although not completely perfect, I was impressed to see that even when used on top of packaging tape or strapping tape it left behind “OPENED VOID” markings. I’ve included pictures from my sample.
Thanks so much,
Erin
The new tape is cheaper, saving anywhere from 5-7$ per roll.
The vendor for the new tape provides instructions on proper use, including what not to do, and is willing to provide training to ensure the sealed cartons containing completed ballots are tamper-proofed.
The Secretary of State’s office appears committed to tape-over-tape. That this still shows evidence that tampering is a huge step forward. The old tape was easily circumvented or left no evidence of tampering.
I think they should follow the vendor’s advice and training on proper use and modify the Elections manual. Whatever they decide, the challenge will be getting clerks and election officials to properly apply the tamper-evident tape to seal the top and bottom of the box properly instead of the numerous, sometimes mummy-like results we’ve seen over the years.
The vendor offers free training and instructions with the tape, which could help.
We leave it to the SoS and public pressure to get clerks to comply and the legislature to address state law to ensure there are teeth added to the law to ensure compliance.
One final note: I was included in the email sent earlier today to the Secretary of State asking if they’d decided to switch to the new tape. I was not included in their response this afternoon – an activist had to forward it to me.
Here are a few of the other images Erin noted in her response.
