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How Would You Design the Voting Technology?
Bob Glickstein asks: "Punch-card ballot machines are now universally reviled, and we techies all know the perils of electronic ones. But I haven't seen anyone talk about a better solution. It's gotta be inexpensive, rugged, reliable, accurate, verifiable, tamper-resistant, simple to use, and secret. Verifying a vote tally should not result in TV news images of rooms full of election officials, squinting at ambiguous marks on a piece of paper. What contraption can possibly meet all these criteria?"
He founded SureVote.
First of all, you can't let people complain about lack of candidates. You've got to pick a few when you do important elections. Those are the breaks.
Ideally, the system should allow voters to suggest candidates if they're feeling creative. There should be a warning message strongly suggesting reading past election results first, though.
Maybe put some disclaimers on it to keep expections down, like "This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane."
Or maybe not.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Who would you like to see the next US President?
George W. Bush
Howard Dean
Ralph Nader
I am Canadian, you insensitive clod.
CowboyNeal
First ask weather a person wants to vote. A simple yes and no will suffice. Next ask, if they really want to vote, again, make it a yes/no question. Then make them choose a randomly generated picture on the screen. Finally get take the MD5 of that picture and based on that calculate the probability of them choosing a certain candidate using genetic algorithm. If you are not familiar with genetic algorithms, a simple ini-mini-myni-mo algorthm will suffice.
Note that is how California does it and if it good enough for California, by god it is good enough for everyone.
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One is born into aristocracy, but mediocrity can only be achieved through hard work.
An electronic voting machine which should produce a printed record. Some type of blind-numbering system should be used for identities -- crypto theory has plenty of theoretical models for this. Users should be able to pick from a drop-down menu or type in a candidate, though for other countries (i.e., rural Africa, etc) or for certain classes of handicapped people, other methods, such as picking from a set of pictures, should be available.
This is pretty strightforward, but as diebold found out, the devil is in the details...
Regardless of how you pick the candidates, still basically half the voters pick one and half the other. It doesn't matter how you flip the coin. They're both the same.
This space intentionally left blank.
Just have the candidates fight it out in armed combat.
Robert Anton Wilson
... would be like Battlebots.
"Derp de derp."
It's gotta be inexpensive, rugged, reliable, accurate, verifiable, tamper-resistant, simple to use, and secret.
Simple solution: Use the slashdot poll
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Use Scantrons, where you bubble in the answer with a black pen or a #2 pencil. Have the people bubble in their votes, and run them through. This makes reading them very easy, especially since the machines are already in use across the country, and verification is as simple as looking at which one is bubbled.
--That's the point of being root, you can do anything you want, even if it's stupid.
Here's the info and picture of one Electronic Voting Machine:
Electronic Voting machine (EVM)
Technical specifications: Technical specifications
-- Sig
I am telling you, you won't believe this !!
If the idea is to accurately count the voter's intentions (how absurd) this would work better:
:-)
1) Voter checks in at front desk, signs voter registration and is given a punch card.
2) Voter enters a voting booth, and inserts blank card.
3) Voter enters their vote choices on touch screen (with pictures of candidates even!) and when done, card is automatically punched with appropriate votes.
4) Voter takes punch card and inserts it into a Republican card reader.
5) Voter takes card and inserts it into a Democratic card reader.
6) Voter takes card and inserts it into independent card reader.
7) Voter gives card to election offical.
8) Election offical presses a button. If results from 4 & 5 & 6 do not ALL match, voter must start over (back to step 2) with a fresh card (current card is destroyed.)
9) Card where votes match placed into old fashioned voter box for recount broo-haa-haa. (sp?)
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But as Joseph Stalin, I would never advocate having multiple parties each having their own electronic systems in a polling place. Accurate vote counts are kind of antithetical for me.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
What about setting your X on a piece of paper?
After the previous election, I fleshed out my own voting system that I think would be quite satisfactory:
Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim MyVotingPreference
Dim UserVotingChoice
If Command1.Value MyVotingPreference then UserVotingChoice = MyVotingPreference
end Sub
This is a matter of democracy not entertainment. The process is what is important. TV tries as hard as it can to influence the elections as it is, making the process entertaining would play into their manipulative agendas.
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"we live in a post-ideological world..." - Billy Bragg.
Two part system.
One. The identification system. It gets you passed the sign on screen. It is developed separately by an independent group whose sole purpose is to create an accurate identification system which can be applied to both state and national elections. Use SSN, Driver's License or State ID, and PIN number assigned to you by the Voter Registrar Volunteer along with current address and full name. The PIN number allows the people giving them out to verify your physical identity so you don't get to go back again or vote twice under two IDs while you're in there.
The ID system's only purpose is to check against a database of registered voters and verify that you have not voted in the current election. That is where it ends. End of program. No more connection to the voting process. Anonymous voting assured.
If you, identified by your credentials, have already voted it will kick you back out to the welcome screen with a thank you for having already voted message.
If you haven't voted in the current election as yet the ID system will forward you to a new program... the voting system.
Second. The voting system is again developed separately by an independent group whose purpose is to create an accurate voting register/database and interface. The only thing it knows about you is that you are a registered and verified voter and it has an auto incremented tally number associated with your session. The screen takes you through the various elections and initiatives allowing you to make your selections, review them and submit them. When you're done it kicks you out to the thank you for having voted message.
The ID and voting systems are clients to a central server systems which are under constant monitoring/security during the election and which are completely reinitialized from a hard copy of their separate codebases for each election so as to avoid preemptive compromises. Each of the databases are reset each election with any new data as needed (new registered voters for the ID system; new candidates, initiatives, etc for the voting system). A good administration tool for the server is also required which streamlines the election setup process for the Registrars Department, whoever else is involved.
The actual ID/voting machines are simple Kiosks with touch screens running an XWindows session or similar remote client application on the central server. Of course they would have to be extensively QA'd to reveal any sort of buffer overflow, syntax glitch or whatever that would allow anything crackish to occur.
That's my two part voting system.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
One piece of paper per candidate,with the candidate's name printed on it. Put it into an envelope. Put the envelope into the ballot box. That's it.
It's fool proof, tamper resistant, easy to inspect and has (well actually is) a paper trail.
That's the most rational thing I've heard in weeks.
How we know is more important than what we know.
We should have 1-900 numbers with proceeds
going to the deficit or else a national super-lotto.
Tell me that wouldn't get voter turn-out.
You must participate in election to be eligible.
One random SSN will be drawn out of all eligible voters in this year's election.
Odds of winning: 1 in 300 million
OK, you get everybody in the whole country who is registered to vote, which I hear is about 25 people or something in America, and you put them all in a big room with only one way out and a big turnstile so once you're out you can't get back in and then I'm sure their is some room for electric cattle prods here and maybe a guy near the turnstile with a pencil and he can take notes on a piece of paper or the back of an old bus ticket or something and then as each voter tries to get through the turnstile to get away from the cattle prod guys this one guy with the pencil might say, 'Oh hey dude, who do you vote for?' and then the voter might say like, 'The Terminator' or 'That Wrestling Guy' or something like that and then the pencil guy could keep a tally right there on the bus ticket and then when everybody's gone except the cattle prod guy and the pencil guy then you could just add up the results and declare a winner. The only problem would be if the cattle prod guy or the pencil guy wanted to vote as well but I say those guys are barred from voting or even knowing who the candidates are because you can never trust some pencil using ludite I mean haven't you heard of biros and that cattle prod stuff is a little too kinky for me.
So there you have it. My New Voting System. Thank You.
Now wash your hands.
Although many qualities were mentioned, the single most import quality of any voting machine was omitted. That quality is equal access. All members of a democracy must have equal access to and equal ability to use the voting machine.
As an example, currently in California there is controversy over the decision to reduce the number of voting booths in Los Angeles County from the normal 4922 voting booths to 1800 booths for the recall election. Because of the increase in the commute time required to reach a voting booth, portions of the population may find it difficult to vote.
At the risk of drifting off topic, equal access should apply to the basic education required of all citizens as well. To have a true democracy, a society must provide in basic education the tools for any citizen to become a politician. Thus the argument that Gray Davis is uniquely qualified for the role of Governor would be moot. All citizens should be provided with an education that would allow them to hold a political office.
Michael.
Linux : Mac
The most transparent technology there is at the moment for recording votes is for voters to tick boxes (or write numbers) on printed ballot papers and put them into ballot boxes. Voting slips are counted by hand based, in the presence of witnesses. If the result is close, the voting slips can be recounted. This system works well in Australia at all levels of government.
OK, we do get problems occasionally. But they are typically things like people impersonating other voters, and people voting multiple times at different polling booths. However, the system copes with this. If the number of voting irregularities detected is sufficient to effect the outcome of an election, a by-election is called in the seats in dispute. It really helps that the courts in Australia are not heavily politicised like they are in the US of A.
(The problems with voter impersonation, etc are also present when voting machines are used. The same solutions could be used in both cases; e.g. requiring voters to present photo ids, and throwing rorters into jail for a long time.)
Put every candidate into one room, and get the voters to stand in a line outside. Give the first voter a gun loaded with a single bullet, and allow him/her to go into the room for a minute. Repeat until there is only one candidate "running for office".
1) Obtain a voting card. Voting cards are issued to eligible voters who provide proof of their eligibility. Things like database checks against known felons and dead people are done well in advance. Checks for current residency and such are also performed. People who try to register unlawfully are prosecuted. Keeping them in jail until the election results are finalized is something logical.
When they obtain the card, they type in their secret pin number so that no one, not even the person helping them, can know it. They are told about the dangers of writing down the secret pin number. They are informed about what to do should they lose the card or forget the pin number.
Should they lose the card or their pin number, they have to present identification to the county again. Again, people who attempt to unlawfully act in the behalf of someone else are prosecuted.
The voter can then vote in the elections over the internet or in the polls (which is really through the internet as well). County representatives should be available at the polls to help with people who have forgotten their pin number or lost their cards. I think we should allow people to vote something like a month in advance, if they so desire. This requires that the ballot not be changed during that time period, so that we don't get the confusion that existed for the Lautenberg/New Jersey deal.
They authenticate over HTTP using the Digest Authentication method. Their username is their voter number, and their password is their pin number.
They are allowed to vote once. However, they can view the results of their vote at any time, and change them before the election is finished. After the election is finished, they can still view their votes for several years afterwards.
Extensive auditing of the code and the databases should be performed. Every line of code should be available for the public to see. After the election, anyone should be able to view the database of votes -- but they only map voter numbers to votes. The voter numbers to real people information is kept secret at the county offices, and are unavailable for public use.
The record of which votes were changed when should also be available. Note that people will be allowed to change their votes up until the set time on voting day. This might reveal voter confusion or fraud.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
That said, I absolutely insist on machine-readable and hand-countable pen-marked paper ballots. This is the only way to insure both fast and accurate election night returns *and* verifiable beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt recount ability. These machines have been manufactured for many years and they *were not* responsible for the Florida cluster-fsk.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Let the results of the election be open for everyone to tally the counts. Assign a voter registration number to each voter, and allow anyone to query the system with that number to find out who they voted for. This would allow for a couple important things:
1. individuals can later make sure their vote was registered correctly.
2. organizations could step through the enumerated voter numbers and publish their own results of the election. They would back up the database in the process.
3. individuals can submit their vote to as many organizations as they want. The groups would then cross verify the votes with their databases.
What to do if someone finds out their vote isn't correct, is debatable. I wouldn't allow them to change it, but if there are enough errors then the election needs to be done over again.
There could be a simple web site that takes your vote and submits it to as many organizations as it can.
I don't know what to do about people that don't vote, nor the people that don't verify their vote.
I'm sure there will be millions, and every one of them could be voted without their aproval. yikes. Damn lazy people.
None of this is really important anyway. What the fuck good does voting do when there are campaign finance laws that are only bipartisan.
-metric
In 1992 I worked an election as an inspector. Each step of the inspection was signed off by a Republican and a Democratic inspector, after both of us saw and confirmed each step of the procedure. I think it would be much easier to make a mechanical clock run fast after the back was sealed on than it would be for anyone to cheat by manipulating one of these machines.
These are the steps, as I recall:
- The machines are shown with both backs removed. This shows a
matrix of mechanical counters, all of which are shown to read 0. There
are "total for office" and "total for candidate" columns at the top
and right. These also read zero.
- The inner back is fastened on. This covers all but the summary
row and column. These are checked to still read all zeros.
- The outer back is fastened on. This covers the summary numbers.
- The election begins. As each voter comes in, he or she is checked
off, so the number of votes can be compared against the machines.
- Inspectors from both parties are sitting with a view of the back of the machines at all times, to further guard against tampering.
- After the election, the outer cover is removed and the summary
totals recorded on paper. The total voters for each office should be less than or equal to the number recorded at the door.
- Next the inner back is removed and the matrix is recorded on paper.
The totals are checked against the numbers recorded in the previous step. All inspectors sign off on this as well.
I just don't see where such a system leaves any room for cheating. Of course, it also couldn't handle an election among 135 candidates, but that's got to be a first anyway.For anyone who hasn't used these machines, they have mechanical safeguards against voting for more than the correct number of candidates for any office. No hanging chads, no votes for too many candidates, no butterfly ballot confusion, and there's a paper trail that can be verified quickly rather than in a vague and subjective way.
Isn't it easier to trust clockwork you can inspect than code you can't? For one thing, no one's going to "download" you new clockwork when you aren't looking at it... and it's 100 years easier to audit.
--
I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
if it lasts that long
How we know is more important than what we know.
Just pick people at random from the population. You'll end up with a government which is just as incompetent, but a lot less corrupt. Also, it will be a good incentive to have a real education system.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Regardless of the system chosen, make sure that the same system is implemented consistently across the entire electorate. Voting procedures should be the same for each and every electorate and polling place - none of the BS where each state and/or county can decide how the elections are to be run. One system implemented identically across the whole country.
hmm... good busines model 1.) hack the online voting system 2.) ??? Something obvious 3.) Profit! no, seriously, since any software will be hacked sooner or later, the only way to maintain online voting security is to link each vote to a name and SSN, then make sure no one voted twice and nobody who's dead or doesn't exist voted, then send snail mail confirmation letters (with a hotline to call or something) to every voter to make sure they didn't just stay home on voting day and get voted by some hacker
Repeal the DMCA!
For each item to vote on, you have a set of boxes. In the set you have the arnold box, the garry coleman box, etc. For each vote, you are given a ball which can fit into one set of boxes. Each set would be a different size, to make sure that you could not cast more than one vote. Then you just put them into a sorting machine that counts the balls.
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
Why not stick to paper voting? The ballot box is locked for the whole day, and usually every party sends an observer/militant to scrutinize each voting place. Having around 500/1000 registered voters per ballot box makes it easy to count by hand (1 hour for 10 people). And every citizen is wellcome to look at the counting. So in every place, every citizen can be sure there was no cheating in his/her area. Then the authorities come out with spreadsheets of the result, and everybody can check the summing and the result for his/her area.
I'm strongly against any automatic machine counting, because cheating is too easy to conceal with those. No citizen can double check the process, and if a court apoints an expert to scrutinize the system, he's again a single point of failure.
Having a machine to count for you is a waste of resources, and driven only by lazyness, or by somebody who wants to look hip, and the danger of cheating is increased.
-Keep an accurate list of the electorate.
-Voter identifies itself, gets a paper ballot with all candidates. These are clearly identified by equally sized photogrpahs and their respective party symbols, if any and their name.
-Voter crosses with pen one candidate only, this is done in the privacy of a voting booth.
-Vote is put in a trasnparent box.
-Voting station closes.
-Officials of an independent, citizen led, election comission count the votes, supervised by representatives of the different parties and candidates taking part on the election.
-They count the votes again to verify.
-They officials call a concentrating office announcing the results for that voting station, 3 of the representatives of the candidates have to confirm these results verbally. This forms the preliminary result.
-Officials and representatives sign an official document whith the results which is dispatched to the concentrating office. Ballot box is sealed with all the votes inside.
-Officials and representatives go our for a beer.
-Results are concentrated by locality, state, or region and finally by national level.
I would like to add that all this is mostly arithmetic and bureaucracy.
Ah! An that I hate overengineering.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Let me explain a method used by a country that has more votes and ballots than any other country (2 - 4 dates per year, typically with several federal and other ballots each)
The method may not be perfect, but it's impossible to organize some tampering nation-wide without being noticed. And unlike the technical solutions, the method is transparent enough that anybody will understand how it works and why the results are trustworthy.
The method is: <drumroll> Have volunteers sort them out.
Zurich (biggest city here) for instance has hundreds of vote counters (appointed by the council) and in addition pays volunteers 20$ an hour on voting sundays (again, a couple of times a year). Work is roughly from 9.30 am to 3.30 pm. It's fast too, we get the results the same day no problem.
Obviously, you want to have more than one person go through those stacks and make sure they agree. Some towns do use machines for the counting. They still have real people sorting the papers (there's one per vote per person), but a machine counts the resulting stacks. They either use the very same machines that count bills in banks (no OCR, just counting the number of sheets in the stack), or they weigh them with high precision scales (often in addition to manual counting).
This method is proven, robust, and scales very well with the number of people in the country.
I shop on the Internet. I have paid all my bills over the Internet for half a decade now. But there's one thing I hope we won't do via Internet or through specialised machines for at least the next decades, and that's voting. The more sophisticated the proposed technical solutions, the less likely ordinary people are going to understand (or trust) it. Don't trust those freaks at the voting office? Well, volunteer to count yourself. Simple as that.
When I visited Florida as a teenager fourteen years ago, I saw one of USA Today's cover polls that asked five year-olds who they'd like to have as their president. Top of the poll (with over 50 percent of the votes, if I remember correctly) was Big Bird from Sesame Street. Then came another bunch of fictional figures with Bill Cosby being the highest ranked human being (with around 10 percent, again IIRC).
Now, fourteen years on, these kids are just becoming elligible to vote for real. I'd think that either of those two choices, Big Bird or Bill Cosby, would make great candidates. For one thing, they have tangible diplomatic skills that have been tested over the years by the most feisty allies (Mr. Snuf-a-lufagus, Dr. Huxtable's wife), adversaries (Oscar the Grouch, the younger Huxtable kids) and special interest groups (Count Dracula, the older Huxtable kids).
Personally, my vote would go to Big Bird. I'd like to see a cabinet with real weight and authority and I think that his staff, including Bert and Ernie, would bring a certain gravitas to the West Wing that's been missing for the last few decades.
So, please, if we're going to see a Slashdot poll, can we add these two candidates for the benefit of that generation? Oh, and perhaps Britney Spears too.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Meet my pals Guido and Tony...
They just want to take a look at your voter confirmation form.
You lost it? Hey Tony, break his legs.
Oh, you know where it is, eh? Let's see it. Guido, tie up his wife.
So, let's see now...
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Anonymous voting is important.
Anonymous voting is important.
ANONYMOUS VOTING IS IMPORTANT!
Sheesh.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
I guess you didn't understand my earlier post.
If there is ANY way to trace my vote to me, I can be compelled to vote a certain way. Blackmail, death threats, etc. If how I voted can be found out AFTER the election, it's still just as bad. Don't try to tell me that I wouldn't accidentally let my voter ID number slip if someone was holding a gun to my head.
The complementary scenario is where someone offers to pay $100 per vote in a certain district, payable upon proof of a certain vote. You think campaign finance laws are bad! Whoot! I think this scenario is significantly more open to abuse!
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
Thank you, now you can prove that you voted the way I want. Here's your cheque.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
In the traditional UK system, every single step of the process is open to the public and visible, except for the voter marking the paper.
That's actually really surprising. I can watch in my local polling stations as voters ask for ballot papers, are given them, hide in a booth to mark them, come out and put them in a box. I can watch the box all day. I can see the box carried to the counting room, and stand on the balcony as counters take the papers out of the boxes and sort them into piles. I don't have to trust anyone else to oversee the process, it's all there for me (or any other voter or candidate) to check.
Nothing that happens inside a box with electronics is visible to an outsider.
The manual system is vulnerable to small human errors and small opportunistic fraud. It is totally immune to large systematic fraud.
The only disadvantage is the expense, but the authorities are considering switching from it to new systems that are several times more expensive to run.
1) Cheap tablet-PC, which is partially subsidised by government, and partially charged to the citizen. The citizen can pay for the sake of convenience i.e. voting from home.
2) 1 machine per household, voting requires a valid ID or passport.
3) Some sort of internet-connection.
4) Citizen involvement during elections and for major events, which require a vote (then we can really see if the majority supports a war or not).
voila...
Oregon abolished the polling place. That's right, we haven't had a voting booth set up for an official election in Oregon starting with the 2000 Presidential Election (don't blame us, we didn't vote for him, and we didn't leave home to vote against him!).
So how do Oregonians vote? In the comfort of their own homes. About six weeks before election day, every residence with a mailbox gets a voter's guide that comes with a voter registration card (if you're not registered and want to vote, you turn it in at least 30 days before the first election you want to vote in). A week or two after that, your ballot, secrecy envelope and return mailing envelope come in the mail. You punch out the appropriate holes on the punch card. Stuff your ballot in the secrecy envelope, stuff the secrecy envelope in the mailing envelope, and put your signature on the back, and either mail it or drop it off at the elections office, or if it's within a week of election day, at any of dozens handy points at various public facilities (libraries, town squares, city halls, courthouses, election offices, etc) staffed by elections officials specifically to collect ballots.
But how does Oregon prevent voting fraud? Easy. We check signatures on the envelopes against the voter registration. Not sure what the sample rate is, but fraud has not been an issue. If you don't get the ballot and you were supposed to, you go down to the elections office, show your ID, they verify your registration and they void out the missing ballot (so even if someone turns it in, when they go to scan the barcode before checking sigs, they see it's void and throw it out). They issue you a ballot and hand it to you and you're on your way.
What does all this mean? Well, for starters, you get three or four weeks with your ballot instead of three or four minutes. Time is on your side in making an informed, well-thought decision without having to stress out that you're missing out on having a life to go down to the polls and vote.
Encourage your state to abolish the polling place
Help us build a better map!
Next time you catch a flight, take a look at that boarding pass in your hand, and consider the possibilites it presents for a voting system:
:-)
1) On a touchscreen, choose your candidates, then confirm your vote by pressing the "Vote & Print" button.
2) In the background, your vote is electronically counted.
3) The voting machine prints out your boarding pass / ballot, while also encoding the magnetic strip on the back with the details.
4) The voter can read the printed ballot to confirm it is correct, before dropping it into the ballot box.
5) When the polls close, the ballots are fed through a magnetic reader, and the tally compared to the electronic tally to confirm its validity.
6) If someone challenges the count, then the ballots are manually tallied using the print-out on the front.
The strong points for this system are transparency (you can still see the ballot), redundancy (for printer, magnetic encoder and electronic count to all fail is highly unlikely), clarity (no hanging or dimpled chads), security (you can hack the electronic count, but not the printed one) and cheap ubiquity (every airline clerk has a printer and a stack of cards).
I belive this combines the best features of electronic and paper voting, using each ones strenghts to overcome the others limitations.
If any boarding pass manufacturers choose to implement this, I expect royalties and a cushy seat on the board
The key is appropriate technology.
In this case, that is paper and a pen.
Here on Brazil we have this kind of machine, check here:
http://www.procomp.com.br/projesp.asp
Unfortunelly the page is available just on Portuguese, but for the core stuff you can use a web translator.
Its not a perfect system, but it help us a lot here.
...is to have paper ballots counted manually by election officials and supervised by representatives of the candidates. Fraud is very difficult and the entire process is open.
I think I'll patent this idea before anybody else does.
For each vote, they should guillotine a finger. This will achieve the following.
-Multiple votes will be virtually eliminated
-Voter ballot selections will be done with much greater care -- it's costing you a finger!
-Much more efficient process at the polls as you need not sign in or provide any identification
-Enables absentee voting with a portable cigar-style guillotine and a plastic coated envelope
-Inane office queries such as "Did you vote yet?" would be eliminated
-Americans would take voting and their selection of candidates much more seriously
There are some downsides. The elderly would be even more difficult to employ with all of those fingers missing. It's also likely that the liberal vote may drop dramatically as they may be put off by the machisma of "giving a finger".
Still it's an easily deployable system for voter identification.
I would change the whole election system. But given that is a huge tangent, and we're only talking about ballots...
/registered to vote. Send them a ballot which is printed in such a way that counterfeiting is extremely difficult/impossible and where validity can be verified by a compute.
I would make the election ballot work like so.
First, give everybody an absentee ballot. Completely eliminate the need to go to the polls on election day. I mean, it's tradition or some crap like that, but seriously. What you do mail everyone who is able
The ballot itself will use the SAT bubble in system. #2 pencil, fill in the bubbles. Everyone must mail/hand their ballots in by/on election day.
People too lazy to leave the house/get absentee ballots will vote. People wont counterfiet votes because they can't copy the ballot. Anyone who tries to send in a fake ballot can be fined/punished under the law for election fraud. The ballot is easy to read and fill out.
Fill in the bubble next to the presidential candidate you are voting for:
(1) Cthulhu
(2) Satan
(3) Slick Willy
So, without changing the method of election, I believe this is the best way to do the ballot. Standardized nationwide.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
In Australia we use pencil and paper for local, state and federal elections. Most election results are known the same night, even for the federal elections. The Australian Electoral Commission is well organised and very efficient.
The advantage of pencil and paper is that it is dead easy to check, or "scrutinise" as we call it here. There are government employees at the polling stations, along with representatives from all the parties. They are all present to make sure the voting process is above board.
After the days voting is complete all those people watch while the votes are counted. It's completely transparent. If there was any fraud taking place the people who care - representatives from political parties in the election - are there to see it, stop it and report it.
Votes from polling stations are sent to a central tally room where they are publicly posted. It's all completely transparent.
How could you possibly have all these levels of checks in a computer system, with complete transparency?
I wouldn't trust any voting system even if I wrote it - who knows how it could be cracked by the deployment team.
I don't understand what the problem that is being addressed is. The Florida election was so close that it was within the margin of error. Nobody is talking about that, just the amount of time a recount takes. This is a mechanical process, you are extracting a value from a human and there are errors in that process; people know thier pin number and push the wrong buttons, people misdial phone numbers, people say the wrong thing from time to time. How is it getting more accurate? Or is that even an issue. I haven't heard too many plans to address that issue.
I don't want illiterate people voting, but the ACLU will have kittens if even one functionally illiterate person can't vote under the "paper and pen" system you mention.
Whatever method is chosen, it must be completely open to the public. There can be NO proprietary, hidden software in Government. Otherwise, how would citizens inspect the workings of government, as is their duty?
There can be NO hidden file formats in government. Otherwise, how will a citizen or historian inspect government documents long after the file formats have changed by a greedy software vendor?
The complete plans to mechanical and electrical devices used in counting ballots must be available to anyone for inspection. That's the only way we can feel sure that there isn't some method of cheating.
Oh, oh, oh! (Hand waving furiously in the air) I know!
Use any old method whatsoever and just use the Electoral College to overrule the popular vote and install the bastard of choice as designated by your friendly state representatives (who only bother to represent your interests when it's time for them to get re-elected -- otherwise they're owned by large corporations.)
With this technique, the actual popular vote doesn't mean crap but the sheep (we, the sheep) can have the illusion that what we say and think matters even one whit to D.C. and the multinationals can run the country (into the ground) as they please.
Oh, wait -- we're doing this already! Sheesh, I shoulda been faster on the draw.
Everything in the Universe sucks: It's the law!
The ideal solution would be an electronic system that printed a paper receipt with a hash or index number allowing you to verify that the vote was cast.
Local election districts will never go with that though -- too hard to defraud easily.
The best politically realistic voting method is paper ballot. If you can't read, use a pen, etc... tough.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
I would have a touch screen, which printed out a human readable piece of paper with SAT style optical ballots filled out. So the voter could look at the paper and make sure it was correct. The ballots would always have perfectly filled in circles (no hanging chad) and there can't be any security problems we don't already have.
You could even have the computers count the votes as they are cast so you can give a quick result which has to be verified by the paper ballots before the vote can be certified.
I'm NOT kidding.
Lots of countries use 'em including many parts of the US. They're cheap, reliable, dificult to corrupt and easy to correct. Heck they even take care of themselves between elections.
The only need for an automated system is for that-night-returns, which really is a silly requirement driven only by TV new's demand for the results: RIGHT NOW.
Get over it.
Counting an election properly takes time. Enough with the EyeCluelessNews InstaPolls, the talking head prognosticators desperately trying to fill the air ("Heh heh heh, good one Chuck! Reminds me of the '54 campaign where..."), the half-assed predictions, and let the process proceed appropriately.
No need for expensive fancy gadgets of dubious utility. No need for overnight results to sate the network's clamor. No need to take the simple process of voting and make it some complicated confusing morass further turning off the voters.
Take the money, the time, and the energy and spend it on getting the damn voters out in the first place. All the shiny expensive finicky technology in the world won't help that.
And leave the Little Old Ladies to their counting. They'll get you the results cheap, soon, and right.
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
There are basically two fraud cases we need to prevent, duplicate voters and vote tampering, in addition to the usual problems of voter stupidity and ballot readability. So here is the way these could be addressed.
There are two significant hardware components. The first MUST be networked. The second MUST NOT be.
First, voter registration. People show up to the polling place, present their ID (driver's license, passport, etc.) to verify their identity. Whoever is handling the line finds them in the online voter registration list, checks off that they have come in to vote, and hands them an electronic key of some sort (USB dongle, magnetic strip card) with a random unique number associated with it. This number is enabled in the list of valid numbers. The patient voter then gets in line for a booth.
Once at the booth, the voter uses the electronic key to open the door. This is the limit of the networked portion of the voting process. The number is then disabled and recorded. All networked portions are of course under heavy encryption.
Inside, the voter uses the user-friendly touch screen to vote. Exactly what software is used is more or less unimportant, though it should be open to encourage peer review. The vote should be recorded on a local 3-drive RAID array, encrypted with a strong public-key encryption.
After the election (or periodically throughout the day) election officials with all the surrounding beaurocracy should physically unlock and remove the RAID cartridge and transport it to the local counting center. Here it is plugged in, the private key (kept only here) is used to read off the data and tally votes.
And that's it. This requires a lot of new hardware, but the voting process is secure, with little change to the way things are currently run (at least in my area.) Voter registration information is networked to provide instant feedback in the case of duplicate voting. Vote counting is completely off the network to provide maximum security from outside tampering. And people get pretty back-lit voting menus that all should be perfectly capable of understanding.
-SablKnight
There are a lot of worse ideas than this around, but I have objections:
This is the direction the UK is actually considering going in (there were trials in some areas in the last local elections), and it's actually scaring me a lot.
- Each machine is totally independent of all others, and -this is important- not connected to any network. Each machine has a unique serial number, and is equipped with a touch screen, speakers, and a microphone, a button, and a printer.
- The first thing the user encounters is a choice of languages. This is pretty self-explanatory.
- The user is then presented with the list of candidates. Each candidate is presented in sequence, with the presentation consisting of the following:
- A voter can select the candidate by touching the screen, pressing the button, or giving a voice command while the candidate is onscreen. Each candidate will be onscreen for six seconds, or the time it takes for the candidate with the longest name to say it plus a second of padding on each side, whichever is greater. This should give ample time to recognize a candidate.
- The user is given a chance to confirm the vote. All their votes are read sequentially, and the user may confirm that this is in fact what they want to do.
- The ballot is printed. It carries a barcode stating what machine it came from, but no information which can be used to identify the voter. This way, if a machine is found to be malfunctioning or compromised, the votes which came from it can be tracked and examined further, but the vote itself remains anonymous.
- A receipt is also printed. This does not carry the vote information, but does carry the barcode for the machine it came from, in case there is need for proof that a voter used a specific machine.
- The voter takes the ballot to the ballot box and casts it.
The idea behind this system is to both maximize security and minimize damage potential. Not networking the machines, for example, does not do terribly much for the security, but does ensure that a hacker could only exploit one machine at a time; to manipulate many machines would take a huge effort. Likewise, the fact that ballots are both machine- and human-readable ensures that the more secure machine counting can be used as a primary system, but hand counts can be used as a fallback mechanism.- A picture of the candidate.
- The candidate's name onscreen, rendered however best fits the language the user chose.
- An audio clip of the candidate saying his or her name.
The idea behind this whole spiel is to present as many ways as possible for a voter to recognize the desired candidate. In this case, the user has text, visual, and aural cues.Punch-card ballot machines are now universally reviled...
Uhm, no. Florida used a particularly stupidly designed punch ballot, where the device cuts down one side first and it's fairly easy to not cut all the way through. Colorado, along with many other states, uses a punch device which cuts all 4 sides at once (and makes a bigger hole). It gives resistance for a bit, then a satisfying "thunk" when it cuts through--all the way through, no "hanging chad", no ambiguity about whether the punch is complete or not. Other states use the fill in the circle with a number 2 pencil kind of ballot, with optical scanners.
So there are solutions out there which are far better than the POS ones used in Florida, and are well-established, and not so easily prone to hacking. The difference in punch devices was reported early in the Florida election mess, but has since been lost in the noise. In no small part I'm sure because of the efforts of vendors of computerized solutions. Think about it--a good punch device (meaning easy to use properly, hard to create an ambiguous vote) is relatively cheap and lasts basically forever. No annual upgrades or support contracts...
Imagine if the voting system is completely online and secured and verified with PKI.
Would it not make sense if we vote directly on issues? Basically, if an "election" is completely automated and costs couple hundred dollars to run, why can't we _directly_ distribute our tax dollars?
So if for example, I have $3000 income tax to pay this month, I can _personally_ distribute it: say, $300 to social security, $1000 to my state, $250 to defense, etc.
This will totally turn the tables: the special interest groups will have to lobby ME, THE TAXPAYER to get money for their projects.
Would not that be an ideal democracy?
We use optical scan here in Nebraska, and we don't seem to have much trouble.
Perhaps I am being naive and oversimplifying things but as I see it all that is needed is:
Since you must show a picture ID to verify your identity (at least where I vote), your uniquely identifiable information can be entered by the personnel working at the voting stations to show that you have voted (though obviously not used to track your vote)
Popisms.com - Connecting pop culture
Over in Brazil we have like 170 million inhabitants, a electronic voting system and no real problems with fraud, ambiguous votes or anything like that. Sure we are just a "third-world" nation but I don't see a reason why this shouldn't scale up.
;)
After seeing two different successful cases using distinct technologies I don't see a logical reason to blame one method or other for "human" faults. Humans fraud elections, miscount votes and use software they don't have the source. If you believe in democracy, you should use your voting system (as lame as it is) to elect the people who won't make this thing possible.
Just my 2 cents (brazilian cents
Disclaimer: If I disagree with you I'm probably trolling...
You go to the polls. When you stand in line, you do a fingerprint and a retinal scan. The scanning system cross-checks your information with the Dept. of Homeland Security to verify you are a citizen; your Social Security number is valid, and that you aren't actually deceased. The poll workers then check for your valid ID as a third form of verification. You go to the voting machine which is a secure terminal running on Linux, BSD, or some other form of Unix that has a history of reliability. The terminal is *NOT* hooked up to the net. You go to the touch screen. You select the language you want to read your choices. Then pictures of the candidates come up and you select from there. There is a keyboard if you want to select a write-in candidate. Once you are done voting, you receive a print-out with a verification code so that your print-out will have a record of what you voted for, but it will not be associated with your identity. All the verification was done prior to you visiting the voting terminal. The terminal reports the voting scores to the mainframe set up at the polling place. It prints out the final results. Multiple print-outs are given to the county registrar as well as *responsible* third-parties (such as UN monitors, the press, other voting-related interests, etc.). The print-outs are also encoded. The mainframe also creates an encrypted DVD-R or flash media to be inserted into a secure laptop at the polling place that is hooked up to the net so that the voting scores can be accessed online, but accepts no inquiries from the net... With security such as this, we could feel more comfortable with our voting system. Of course, the flip side of this is had this existed in 1960, Kennedy would've never been elected...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
how is it that we can so accurately (supposedly) count US bills automatically, but we have such a hard time with this.
I've never seen a soda machine accept a fake dollar bill (not that i've tried). So, you print up specialized "bills" with similar technology to current money, and have a big soda machine, with a slot for each candidate. If the machine rejects the bill, you just go ask for a new one until you're able to vote.
After you vote, you get a soda, but it will be supermarket brand.
Joseph Stalin: those who cast votes deside nothing; those who count votes deside everything.
Just because I don't care, it doesn't mean I don't understand. Homer J. Simpson
That a voter cannot prove how they voted. People seem to forget that during the depression, votes were routinely bought. You marked your ballot, showed it to the large man outside the schoolhouse window, then deposited it. Then you left and got your money. (Or your thumping if you'd promised and didn't.)
People devising electronic voting schemes seem to forget this. It is not nearly enough that a person *can* keep their vote secret; a voting system must ensure that they cannot disclose it.
Anything less opens the door for widespread abuse.
Just post really big signs everywhere explaining how to mark your votes(punch card, scantron, whatever). Next to it post sign that says, "If you mark it incorrectly(dimple, multiple marks, whatever), your vote doesn't count. So get it right! If you can't I don't want your vote to count.
Ok, I calmed down a little whatever system you use should allow the voter to watch thier results read in and see the result, giving them the option to say. "That's wrong". Then they go back and vote again untill it is right.
Ahh, A nice legally binding electronic signature...
Why reinvent the wheel?
It's not a problem with punch cards. It's operator error. A small sign to the effect, "clean your chads or your vote won't count" solves the once in a blue moon problem with them.
Let's get on to more serious issues like desegregation in the dairy section...
There is no way in hell online anonymous voting can EVER be done securely.
Repeal the DMCA!
Use what works best where is works. In the case of the electronics, it is the UI that can highlight errors, give extra info, even different languages, and gaurantee an error-free ballot. No network is required in this manner, and thus is not subject to massive electronic fraud.
Printers can print said ballot in hard copies (preferable while still in the voting booth) that are legible in both machine and human readable forms. This allows both the voter and the ballot counters to double check a result, while not eliminating the convience of machine tallying (with manual spot checking or manual recounts) and without loosing a paper trail.
Anm
I personally like how it works in Washington State. It essentially is like a scantron form (and you don't even have to use No. 2 pencils!). You mark all your choices and slip into this locked reader dealie and presto! I once even accidentally marked two candidates for which only one could be marked. The machine that I deposited it into spit it back out at me telling me there was a mistake on my ballot. It didn't tell me what it was (that would be a nice improvement), but I figured it out quickly. I don't know how secure the whole process is, but once I receive the ballot it isn't touched by another rep until it is unlocked I guess. I'm also not sure if it counts the number of ballots only or if it also counts the votes you made too. To me this sounds like it could work well. A huge network of scantron forms and readers. Once you slip it into the reader it transmits the info to whatever database. Of course in backwater towns this might not be as feasible. But I like this solution since it still has a paper trail as well as an electronic component. The one problem with this is that you still have to visit a poll or get an absentee ballot.
Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful
The money now spent on political advertising would go directly to the State.
If Chaos Theory has taught us anything, it's that we must kill all the butterflies.
And that means PAPER, plastic, whatever, but the part that is machine readable (think scantron), must be the same part that is human readable. I don't care how the marks get on the ballot, but the voter should be able to easily verify the ballot is correct before turning it in to be counted.
Perhaps ideally I'd spec a touch screen computer/printer combo which would show pictures of the candidates in random order, you pick one, and only that candidate is printed on the ballot in MICR font or something.
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
In my state we use optical scan ballots and it seems to be an ideal balance between verifiable paper trail and machine counting. Once the ballot is marked the optical scanning does indeed work well and is very quick.
The ballot is placed inside an opaque folder to hide the actual votes, but an end sticks out. A poll assistant aids the voter in feeding the machine, which sucks the ballot in and counts it. If there's a problem the ballot doesn't get sucked in and corrective action can be taken.
What could be done to improve the process is a screen-based marking station. Do away with the pen and use a touch screen in its place. This would eliminate the "stray mark" problem.
After a voter touches up a ballot, print it out in the booth. Voter then verifies it and submits it to the counting machine. If the ballot is incorrectly marked the voter would take it to the poll taker as a spoiled ballot and have it destroyed and try again.
This two-phase process has the added benefit of increasing the difficulty of hacking the system, since there are now two separate components instead of a single box to compromise.
Ok - This is a huge myth. The problem in florida wasn't with butterfly ballots or punch card systems at all... It was with a faulty law saying that the vote counters had to determine the "intent of the voter" rather than just count votes. Simplify the law and say the intent of the voter is expressed when more than two corners (three, one, whatever) of the box are torn and there isn't a double vote of any kind... That removes ambiguity.
Now go back and realize that ALL of the florida recounts - No matter what any silly liberal will attempt to tell you - came out with GWBush in front. The problem being is that in each and every count the closeness of the count was well under 3 sigma to the error of the counting process, however we are rather sure that he got more votes than Gore did. If Gore wants to complain - why the heck didn't he win Tennesee, his home state - and make Florida mute.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
I would design the equipment to be a simple user interface, as much like a pen and paper ballot system as possible except that you could make changes without ruining the ballot. To prevent fraud, I'd use a mag-stripe, bar-code, or chip system that would allow for only one ballot cast per code. These codes would be designed so as to not be able to be traced to the individual voter. Perhaps they could get a random one from an election judge in exchange for their registration reciept.
Once the vote is cast, the data could go to a secure database on a locked and sealed laptop. The data would have to also be written to a non-volitile media (ie: burned on a CD). Once the polls close the PC could be unlocked and the seals broken (in front of election judges) taken to a central location for "counting" and "verification" allowing for rapid certification of the count. Auditing could be done later using the original database to veryfy the count.
This would assure the secrecy of the ballot and would not force many changes on the system that already works fairly well. This would help it gain acceptance and credibility.
I know this is low-tech. No internet, no VPN, minimal investment, almost nothing to go wrong. But that is just what is needed. Anything more opens the door to fraud.
Think about it.
What's wrong with public office by lottery? We choose juries that way. Most people selected at random would not be in the game for money or power. A truly random selection of the population would better represent the majority opinion than our current system, which chooses those who self-select for politics. Any true loonies chosen would, statistically, be balanced by other true loonies with diametric opinions. Government should not be so complicated that an ordinary person of good will would be unable to handle it. The reason it is now is because we have a government of lawyers and career politicians.
Of course...this assumes that your population has some sense of civic responsibility--so forget I said anything, I guess.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Nice to see you keeping an open mind. :-)
Your theory still has a serious flaw. Ignoring it won't make it go away.
--
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." - Josef Stalin
Step 1) Everybody who registers to vote gets a unique ID sent or given to them. This ID is large, and randomly generated (but remembered; like credit card number assignment), so hard to generate fakes. It is analogous to a voting ballot; it could literally be handed to you at the voting booth, or it could be mailed or emailed to you if you aren't paranoid that they will keep a record of the association. I.e., note that your name is not associated with the number -- they check your name off the list when they hand you a random number, but they don't write down the number next to your name.
Step 2) You vote online or in a booth using this number, scanned in by barcode (booth) or typed in (online). You keep the number (on official paper) as your receipt.
Step 3) All votes are published online (probably along with voting location and approximate time) where anybody can count them, and more importantly where anybody can see and verify their own vote.
Place a large X on the paper next to the candidate you wish to vote for with the pencil. Anybody without the intellegence to cope with this technology should not be permitted to vote anyway.
You walk into the voting booth, which looks remarkably like one of the small rooms in a bangkok brothel. You sit down and wait.
In walk two gorgeous anime-style twins. Their bushes are shaved into the image of one or another candidate, and the name of the candidate is tastefully painted in small letters just above the hairline. Whichever candidate the voter picks gets the vote (and a "right rogering" as the British say). Indecisive voters can nail both candidates, then decide afterwards.
Repeat for N candidates, or until the voter slips into a blissed-out exhaustion coma.
I guarantee this system will increase voter turnout by several thousand percent, what with voters coming back to vote again, and again, and again...
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
why the US election system is so reliant on technology.
Here in the Great White North we just use plain ol' paper ballots. You take your ballot, mark the X and put it in the box. As for security, that's what scrutineers are for. Now if this can be done nationwide in a country of 30 million people, why can't it be done statewide in California, with the same population?
Oregon has regular elections every November, and usually between the initiative process and the Oregon legislature, we usually get two or three special elections for ballot measures every year. Oregonians usually end up voting between three and five times a year, not once every few years.
Help us build a better map!
A: Sweden doesn't have the plurality of races, creeds, SES, regional interests, etc. that the USA does.
B: The USA has Single-Member-Districts to populate its representative bodies in almost every jurisdiction at almost every level of government. It mathematically over-represents the majority, and at times entrenches a minority against a majority. The effect is that a "simple majority" vote de jure is more like a two-thirds majority requirement de facto.
C: What people don't get is that the US system is DESIGNED to hand every close political contest over to the status-quo. Once in a while, or in places where the system is odd, there are upsets, but it is the exception and not the rule.
D: To win against an encumbent in the USA, you need to achieve an overwhelming level of support almost under the radar, to prevent the status-quo from calling in favors from political connections to tip the scales. They only need to get things back to a close race in order to achieve the upper hand.
E: If you are an American "underdog" (BTW: I have that in a T68i ringtone if anyone wants it), you should work harder outside (I don't mean against) the system, until you have sufficient momentum to outmaneuver your encumbent. Then you must maneuver your advantages against your opponents' political weaknesses.
F: Go read The Prince , and then get yourself into a quiet place with the dead-tree version of Discourses .
G: "You seek followers? Seek ZEROES!!!"
-- F. Nietzsche [the emphasis is mine, and I have another one about translations if you like to nitpick]
Truly: votes are for losers. Real political power comes from the consensus--civil agreement-- that voting only pretends to express. Vote-getting is for losers. Winners know what will happen with or without the polls. Connect with and coalesce the the support of real people and the rest will come as a natural consequence.
H: Beware the ides....
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
I'd make a shockwave flash file an what you would do is throw tomatoes at the candidates you don't want. First past the post system. Pretty damn simple.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
..."Candidate Deathmatch."
OK, so it was two words. Consider me a candidate, and consider that to be my first broken campaign promise.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
I don't have any suggestions for revamping the voting process itself
My only suggestion is a complete news blackout of election results until *all* ballots are counted, including absentee, military, etc.
I think this negatively effects elections, people will check to see how their candidate is doing and decide whether it's worth voting or not.
This is probably a double-edged sword though, it'd be easier to rig an election half-way through with no one paying attention.
--- Do you believe in the day?
Ostrakon.
KFG
Why can't we have a machine to make the voting process easy? Have a display with a touch screen that has the candidate's picture on it and a min-bio or something so the senile can still vote, and when it is done, it prints out a ballot with the candidates name and any other information, and a machine readable bar code. The voter would then turn in that ballot.
begin:
switch (rand()%2)
[
case 0:
bush++;
break;
case 1:
gore++;
}
goto begin;
how long until
Electronic voting booths are used here in WV (at least Cabell County, anyways). You are presented with a touch screen that shows check marks next to your choices. Also, You CANNOT submit your vote UNLESS you have read or seen EVERY page of the ballot. That means even if you're voting a straight ticket, you would at least see who's running. That's in case you happen to see someone you happen to like (more likely in a local poll) who is running for office. As an election clerk, It sure makes that 15-hour day sooo much easier. No spoiled ballots, and there's no such thing as a chad. The vote reads EXACTLY as it is marked. Don't ask me about the absentee procedure, because I went to the courthouse physically to cast mine with the same machines.
FLAMEBAIT AHEAD!!!
So, that's why so many Florida voters (mostly minorities, BTW) voted for Pat Buchanan, who openly admitted that they were NOT his votes. It was their intent to vote for him? Mr. Buchanan didn't seem to think so.
Comeone guys, you haven't forgotten about Goergy Russel and her desire for an instant runoff voting recall election. I would use an optical scan system with paper ballots, the merits of which have been previously covered by other posters. I would also incorporate IRV into the voting, where people select preferences from a list of candidates.
1 tequila 2 tequila 3 tequila floor
connect the arrow halves with your special marker, feed it into the scanner, it's done. that's 1990 technology, and it works. scantron "dot race" forms would not be real elder-friendly. but it's similar technology.
of course, for the fiendish torture that is the california recall and revote, the ballot, as many cartoons have depicted, is the size and weight of the LA telephone book. but that's OK. idiot elections deserve idiot ballots, as well as idiot candidates.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"What a shame" wasn't meant for
your comment. It's a shame that
the open voting system won't work.
-metric
1. Electonic polling machine accepts voter's choices.
2. Polling machine adds voters choices to internal counters.
3. Polling machine prints paper slip with both a human readable and a machine readable record of voter's choices. This slip is placed in a sealed ballot box as in the current punched card system.
4. Once the polls close, the poll-workers, with the candidate's/party's representitives, record the tally from each machine. This becomes the official result unless a descrepancy is found in the following steps.
5. A random sample of n paper slips from each machine is machine counted based on the machine readable information. If this dosen't match the results from 4 pretty closely, a full hand count will be necessary.
6. A random sample of m paper slips (where m can be less than n) is counted based on the human readable information. If this dosent' match the results from 4 and 5 pretty closely, a full hand count will be necessary.
By printing the paper slips with human readable information, and machines mistalling votes will likely be noticed immediatly by the voters. Step 5 prevents tampering with the polling machine's internal results by ensuring that the printed slips match the internal tally. Step 6 prevents a more clever attacker from printing his or her desired vote on the machine-readable portion while recording the voter's choice on the human-readable portion.
Come test your mettle in the world of Alter Aeon!
show of hands?
I think I have this nailed.
First and foremost, I believe everything has it's place. I think that zelots that think that EVERYTHING should be run in Linux or EVERYTHING should be open sourced are nuts.
Everything has it's place.
And the electronic voteing booth just screams for open source.
That is where I would start. I am closed minded to any company or individual that won't go open sourced on these things.
If I was in charge I would offer the electronic voteing booth contract in the same fashion that the Navy has 'fly offs' for new jet contracts.
I would find a company, or three and give them my requirements for the voteing booth. I would ask them to design something to my specifications and it must be open source.
Then I would put up a challenge to the Linux community. I would post the same requirements that I gave those companies on the net and look for some people to put together a free software open source voteing booth.
In a year I would do the 'fly off' (or vote off, sans actual election) and either pick the free software project or one of the companies.
That is part one of my plan.
The second part are my security requirements.
At some part in either the registration process or possibly at the polling place (or even both) the voter is issued a blank smart card. The card contains no personal information either digitally or printed on the surface.
The voter goes to vote.
When they cast a vote the computer tallies it up in memory (naturaly) and then they are issued a paper reciept.
The paper reciept does not need to contain any personal information either. It does need to list who the person voted for in clear bold English. A senior citizen should be able (and encouraged) to read the reciept to see that no mistakes were made. Also on the reciept is a bar code to aid in computer tabulation.
At this point the smart card comes into play.
Here is where the smart card gets, well smart.
It is totally optional. If someone leaves the card at home, or is opposed for any reason they don't need to use it.
The user inserts the smart card and some information is stored on the card.
**note** Feel free to add suggestions to this, I am not a comp sci person at all. I came up with this on my own***
The information is something like this:
1. The exact time that the card is written to.
2. The number of voters to have used the machine that day.
3. A hash file representing the exact size of the program data on the machine (like you would use to double check the a file you would get off of usenet)
4. A running total of all the results of the voteing on that booth so far.
Finally all this data is secured with a key that is kept private in the voteing booth itself. I would make it a law that once the elections ended the key had to be made public.
Here is what I am accomplishing:
1. You can always do a normal tally and not worry about my back ups. If everything appears normal and people are happy then there you go.
2. If recounts are asked for they can be easily accomplished by using the paper reciepts from the voteing machines. If someone cries foul at the bar code they can read the type on the reciepts.
3. If people are still crying foul - the voters keep the smart cards. Since every machine has a different key and all keys are public as soon as the voteing is done then it is a simple enough matter for independent programmers to verify the votes on there own.
But what most people will do is go back to the polling place and swipe the smart cards into a reader. The reader will record the information and produce a graph showing the real time voteing that happened at each booth. Sans personal information (thank you very much).
In the event that someone tries to cheat the system it will be obvious. Even if someone reencrypts the card they will show up like a sore thumb next to the next card that is read (see... we did a running tally of the votes.
Well, first post ever by me. I'm not sure if I can use html tags (does this work?), or those funny weird forum tag things (does [i]this[/i] work?). Anyway...
:/
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Democracy, shmemocracy. Make me your leader!
Broadband as a human right!
Extensive taxing on:
M$!
RIAA!
OK, I assume that you nerds don't like those two either. Im just trying to make some allies in my first post
Tobacco!
Alcohol!
In fact, lets just made those last 2 illegal.
Well, that's about it on my stance. Oh, throw in some communism too. Go nuts.
Oh, and i just saw that drop-down list under this box.
[digital] + [literatus]
Why not?
Submit ID, computer logs it so it cannot be used again. Submit vote, computer prints it to a printer for manually tally. The two have no link to each other, and the votes cannot be electronically modified once they have been printed. Combine that with decent encryption and multiple hosts located in different locations in the country on different networks receiving the votes and it's probably more secure than a physical voting boot.
Nothing is 100% secure of course, and a voting boot isn't either. Just plant a tiny video camera and you can watch people vote. I mean it would probably be a lot easier to pull that off than it would to be in the right place to capture packets, decrypt the packets and the link the ID to the vote.
I could probably think of as many ways to crack a voting boot as I can an online voting system. So I don't see why it's such a bad idea if there is a realized benifit (like more people voting). Of course if there is no benifit, then the old trusty pencil/paper method is the best bet.
Allow it so that tabulation is available to any certified tabulator and make it so there are at least 3 of them.
To avoid having information defrauded, at election time, each voter is given a new random for each election but bounded by the number of valid voters. A voter is allowed to change their vote at any time prior to the election close time. The vote is simultaneously cast at all the tabulators. Each tabulator is not allowed to give any data that correlates voter number to vote, not even in an aggregate way. Essentially, aggregators have a random list of numbers. Each tabulator is required to publish the random voter number list of actual voters. If the independant tabulator random voter list do not match, between tabulators then somthing is wrong and electoral officials step in to investigate the discrepancy. The mapping from voter number to voter authentication is done by the electoral office. Both the voter and the tabulators to not know the mapping. The electoral office will not know how the voter cast their vote, only the tabulators will have that information. Votes can be cast by the internet or at polling booths.
I can go on with more but it's essential to say that this a system based on openness and can be independantly verified.
I voted in 2000 PB County by absentee and had no trouble at all. All the issue is is one of Lawyers being involved with the vote. One that happened any kind of ballot will be in jepardy. The problem was the Lawyers not the ballot.
The way we do it is first we living people go vote, and then, if the count isn't going the right way, our dead ancestors rise from their graves and vote in alphabetical order until we have the votes we need.
A good secure method for mail voting, combined with Internet verification (your ballot has a serial number, you verify online after it's counted that the numbered ballot matches how you voted) can be found at the process being used by the Free State Project voting process.
It seems like large parts of the process could be adapted to have a repeatable and perfectly secure vote.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.