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California to Require Paper Voter Receipt
DDumitru writes "Wired reports
that California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley will require all electronic
voting systems be equipped with a voter-verifiable paper receipt. This receipt
will not be retained by the voter, but deposited at the polls and may be used
to audit electronic election results.
All new voting system installed after July 1, 2005 must include the new printers.
Existing systems, including the systems already installed in four counties must
be retrofitted by July 2006.
It looks like the public outcry about Diebold and other voting equipment manufacturers
has been heard, at least in a very major market for these machines in the US.
It should be very difficult for other states to not follow suit."
This needs to be implemented *before* the elections next November to avoid a mess again.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
What exactly is wrong with taking a piece of paper with every candidate's name on it, and making an "X" beside your choice? This is the way things are done in Canadian federal elections, no fancy-pants touch screens or butterfly ballots or any other nonsense. Everyone gets a ballot with a standard design, from Victoria to Halifax.
Sometimes the best solutions are the simplest. If technology doesn't simplify life, what use is it?
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Why does the bill allow such a long timeline? By requiring a paper trail in 2005 (not in time for the next presidentail election), the legislature is clearly saying there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Why does it not need to be addressed in time for the Presidentail election?
A year is plenty of time short of deliberate sandbagging.
I don't think that electronic voting is really an advantage over traditional methods, especially as it's so open to abuse. But if it is implemented, then at least the possibility of verifying results is now there.
I'm sure some smartass will just claim their voting receipt is different from their vote just to kick up a stink though... enough of these could throw the thing into more doubt.
This idea was invented by Shampoo.
You missed the point. The reason to print the receipt after each person votes rather than printing off a report later is so the voter can see the receipt and verify that the machine has correctly recorded the vote. Even if not every voter bothers to check the receipt, enough will that a malfunctioning machine will be detected. The receipts than allow for a recount to be done later if there is some doubt about the machine's accuracy or if the machine crashes.
...as goes California, so goes the nation. Smog laws; consumer protection laws, etc. Not always, but usually. Too bad CA can't stop shooting itself in the foot when it comes to business and health care.
A paper trail is just a sanity check, and a completely reasonable way of keeping things in line.
In Iowa to vote you go inside your own booth will nothing but a pencil and a scantron sheet (like the ones you fill out on a standardized test). Fill in the circle and you're done.
Of course, the circle has to be completely filled in. But the again, if you can't fill in a circle then you probably shouldn't be voting.
Counting the votes is relatively fast. We usually know within 2 hours of the polls closing who has won.
Why do we even NEED an electronic system? What is wrong with the paper ballots?
-Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
With traditional paper voting, you keep the piece of paper in your hand until it's in the box. The only visual verification is that somebody saw you put a piece of paper in the box. Any piece of paper, it doesn't matter. When the votes are counted later, if your vote is disqualified, then no-one knows you did it.
With this system, the votes are printed and visible to you. If you're going to complain that the machine stuffed up, you have to tell someone. This person will ask you who you voted for, and will want to verify that the printout contains another candidate's name. Once they've verified that your candidate and the the one on paper are different, some action will be taken to fix the machine. But by then, the official will know how you intended to vote. Your vote is no longer anonymous.