Is Our Secret Voting System Secure?

Have you ever wondered how our secret votes are processed? What if an officer wants a certain vote to go a certain way? What measures are in place to prevent the tampering of votes?

When there is a secret vote that is required by the entire membership it means that the voting process will be conducted over many days and go to many groups of people. It starts with the First Chapter meeting. This sets that stage for the following meetings until the votes have been collected from all the different meetings. The meetings that follow the first main chapter meeting must stay with in what was covered in the first meeting. The process that happens in the first meeting must be repeated in the same manner in all the other meetings.

In the first meeting all members will receive one purple ballot to vote yes or no on the issue at hand. Every member is allowed to vote only once. All the votes are collected and Evette places these votes in an envelope, seals and labels it once she is sure all votes have been collected for that issue. At this time the votes are not counted or accounted for; they are just sealed up for later viewing.

This brings my first concern and question about our process. After the first chapter meeting how many people have access to the sealed envelope/s? Do the people that have access to the envelope/s also have access to blank ballots? What security measures are taken place to make sure our votes are secure from possible corruption?

So the meetings continue the next day at a different location. The same issue is voted on in the same manner. Each member that has not voted yet receives a ballot and is allowed one vote each. The votes are collected and sealed in an empty envelope that is labeled so that it can be identified to what vote it is addressing. Again Evette seals the envelope once she is sure all votes have been collected. This process repeats until all properties have voted.

During all of this time who has had access to any or all of the envelopes? Who has access to blank ballots? And what security measures are in place to protect against possible corruption?

Once all properties have voted who opens all the envelopes? Do all the envelopes all get matched up with each other? Who is a witness to this event? At any time during this event is there any access to blank ballots? And what happens to the ballots after being counted?

I am very concern that our secret voting system has many open doors that puts the power of trust to test. If Evette or other officers did or did not want a vote to go a certain way do we trust this process?