ACLU of Ohio Sues To Block Paper Ballots

Apu writes in to inform us that the ACLU is trying to block an Ohio county from moving from touchscreen voting machines back to paper ballots. While it may seem like Cuyahoga County — which includes Cleveland — is moving in a good direction from the perspective of ballot security, the system chosen tabulates all votes at a central location. This means that voters don't get notified if their ballot contains errors, and thus they have no chance to correct it. The ACLU of Ohio is asking a federal judge for an injunction against any election in Cuyahoga County it they move to the new system.

Comments

Voting is a serious activity

[benzapp]

If someone cannot take the time to devote a minimum amount of effort to fill out a ballot properly, perhaps they should not vote at all.

A frivolous lawsuit.

Disenfranchising the minuscule number of people who cannot fill out a paper ballot pails in comparison with the threat posed by computerized voting systems. The ACLU has their priorities all wrong.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[Microlith]

If someone cannot take the time to devote a minimum amount of effort to fill out a ballot properly, perhaps they should not vote at all.

No, they should be notified of their error immediately and be allowed to correct it. You are wholly wrong here.

A bad system vs. a bad system. Except the paper ballot system is likely easily corrected by pulling the scanner machines out of the centralized location and placing them in the polling venues. In stark contrast the systemic flaws seemingly designed into most electronic voting systems.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[riseoftheindividual]

I have to agree. Centralized vote counting? Forget people trying to correct their mistakes for a moment(I do think that's important though), how in the hell can people independently validate the vote tallies? In my state, the vote tallies for each precinct at the end of the day are posted outside of the voting stations. There are numerous individuals representing numerous interests who go around and count those tallies. I'm not saying my state's system is perfect or anything, but there is a degree of transparency in our system that I just can't see a central counting system ever having. Is it as "efficient"? No, but this isn't mass production in a free market for christ's sake, this is the vote of the people of our republic deciding the future of our government.

Getting back to the error getting corrected at the polling place... I saw this on several occasions having grown up in a neighborhood with a lot of seniors. When you have trembling hands, mistakes can be made. I don't see why having trembling hands should mean their vote gets disqualified as if that means they're stupid or something. There's a lot of valid physical ailments people can have that might lead to a mistake, and I personally have seen optical scanners onsite at polling stations catch them and allow the person to correct them.

Voting is indeed a serious activity, serious enough to warrant a system that concerns itself with making sure that everyone's vote gets counted accurately whether they make a mistake or not.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[erroneus]

Is it really too hard to imagine what it's like not to care about things like voting? It has long been observed that the people of the US regard themselves as powerless to change anything at all. Commonly spoken expressions such as "you can't fight city hall" have dated back more than four decades and probably more. The fact that the US civil war and the American Revolution war of the 18th century happened shows that many things have changed but not the least of which is where the center of power actually lies.

We just don't have the correct amount of oppression or corruption from our government yet. We're actually quite a long way from that point at the moment. But one sign of that tipping point approaching is when hundreds are made to suffer when a few act. That is to point out that when the Revolutionary war happened, there really weren't that many people acting in revolt. But when they did, the oppressive and corrupt government was to come down on everyone which ACTUALLY made the war start. There were plenty of people loyal to England and the British Empire. There were lots more who were indifferent and only cared about their daily lives. But that all changed when these indifferent people became victims of war, then they had to fight or die.

So you see, we're rather far away from that point. To make revolution even more unlikely, our educational system churns out products good enough to be workers, but not quite good enough to think for themselves, and there is certainly no real emphasis on history because if there were any, even the 'workers' would be able to realize there are some pretty big problems going on.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[afidel]

The problem is, the computerized system ALREADY centralizes the vote counting, and in a MUCH less transparent way. The memory cards containing the vote tallies from the machines are brought to the board of elections and the votes downloaded to the server there (the server that repeatedly crashed during the last election causing the switch to scantron ballots). Now both parties have numerous people there overseeing the process and if they think there is something wrong they will of course ask for a hand recount where the ballots are tallied twice by a representative from each party. My problem with the ACLU petition is that NO system can be idiot proofed and so demanding a perfect system before we can switch off the damned electronic machines is asnine. Sure if there was time and money ideally they could get scantron machines for each polling station and train the poll workers to use them but there isn't and I think it's MUCH less dangerous to a fair and transparent election to go with the proposed scantron method. If this lawsuit proceeds it's likely I will be disenfranchised from the primary election (because I seriously doubt there is time to lineup all the technicians needed to oversee the electronic machines in time) and I am pissed about that.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[QuantumRiff]

Having your vote tallied by someone in running a machine in front of you defeats the whole purpose of confidentiality. They know exactly what I voted for, since they are right there at the machine. I would be against having my neighbor run my vote through a machine. (And if you can't expect the people to vote correctly, you certainly can't expect them to run it through a machine correctly, you would need someone "trained" to do it)

In oregon, all votes are mailed back to each respective county clerk. The mailing envelope is opened, (it has your name and signature on it) and saved separately. Then the "secrecy envelope" is opened, with your ballot in it. Then you can know that your vote was counted, but they don't know what you voted for. Then, a team of people go over the ballots to count them (along with machines as well). Every vote that is handled has to have 3 people present while it is handled, to ensure fairness. (I believe that they can't all be of the same party). Paper ballots are never destroyed, so recounts are easy, and votes are verifiable. The whole process is really stinking easy, no driving to locations to vote on a day you have a bunch of meetings, school, etc. HUGE voter turnout. Basically, the whole state does voting the way that most states do "absentee" voting.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[illegalcortex]

While I agree with most of your posts, I have to question the education aspect. First off, I think if you look at the educational system in place pre-revolution, you have to admit it's a bit lacking. Especially for the "workers" you talked about. I think it's much more likely today that some son of a working class family will get an education that allows them to think on the level of the revolutionary thinkers. I think in revolutionary times, the lack of education more likely allowed the "thinkers" to be able to control and direct the population towards rebellion. Second, it was the wealthy that actually got any kind of good education in revolutionary times. The wealthy can still get such an education. Things haven't really changed that much in those terms.

Re:Voting is a serious activity

[STrinity]

No, they should be notified of their error immediately and be allowed to correct it.

Sorry, but anonymous voting is more important than disenfranchising people who can't follow instructions.

Secret motto

[Wylfing]

Ohio! Committed to throwing elections since 1803!

Oh Bother

[arizwebfoot]

Like the ACLU is the shining torch bearer for all that is right and good in this country. How is someone's "civil liberties" encroached by using a paper ballot? Next they're gonna be gluing chicken feathers on bullfrogs and trying to teach them to fly.

At least paper can't lie.

[Coopjust]

With paper, if you didn't vote for the candidate you intended to...it's your fault and visible if you follow the directions.

With a compromised e-voting machine, you could walk in and have the machine say "Thanks for voting for candidate A" while it adds a vote for candidate B.

Give 'Em Bingo Blotters

[queenb**ch]

Seriously.... give them bingo blotters. Make the ballot look like a bingo card. Even the biggest id10t *ought* to be able to figure that out. If you're not smart enough to figure out *how* to vote, you don't get to. - I'm calling this principle democratic darwinism.

2 cents,

QueenB.

They aren't against paper but Central Count Paper.

[Irvu]

So the title is misleading. The ACLU is filing suit against the county's decision to switch to Centrally-Counted optically scanned ballots where the ballots are filled out at the polling place and sent to a single central warehouse for scanning. They are not against Precinct-Counted optical scanners where they are scanned at the polling place.

The crux of their argument is that central counts unlike precinct count and even mediocre touchscreens offer the user a warning when they overvote or undervote for a race thus warning them that they ballot may not be counted and thus giving them a chance to fix it. Their argument is that this lack of a warning (however poor) is likely to cause many errors that the voters are never aware of.

So strictly speaking they are not against the use of paper ballots (it is my understanding that they favor them) just against this particular type of scanning system.

Re:And yet a new five-year study...

[Rakishi]

And lots of security experts disagree, I trust security experts to analyze security over five political science majors and one user interaction computer scientist.

In Arizona

[Nom du Keyboard]

In the very backwards state of Arizona, they still use paper ballots. Yet when those ballots are inserted into the ballot box, they go through a visual scanner that kicks the ballot back out immediately if it is improperly marked. While you can choose not to vote on any given ballot issue, accidentally marking more than one vote for an issue will reject the ballot immediately, and you can get a new one on the spot to correct. Paper ballots don't need to have the problems cited here, and obviously have some advantages in recounts afterwards.

Of course, by the ACLU rules, voting Republican is a source of voter error, and reason for the ballot to be rejected.