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Pull Lever, Don't Snap Shutter: It May Be Illegal To Post Your Ballot
An anonymous reader writes "Proud voters are already posting their ballots on Instagram but ProPublica's Lois Beckett reports that you may want to check your state laws first since showing your marked ballot to other people is actually illegal in many states."
If you can prove how you voted, to anybody, you can demonstrate to some interested third party that you voted the way they wanted you to. Which means you could sell your vote, or be coerced into voting a certain way.
That's also why any voting proposals that involve a receipt showing that your vote for Smith rather than Jones are a bad idea, as are any proposals involving a way to look up your own vote online after the election.
Let's just hand them a receipt with a checksum on it, which can't be decrypted, but can show whether vote was tampered with by some Diaboldical CEO who promised to deliver votes to a certain candidate.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
There is the dead voting thing. I know of two examples. We received a voter ID card for two of my grandparents. Both registered Democrat. One died 19 years ago and the other died 20 years ago. Only this year we received their new voter ID cards. Odd since I know both were not registered Democrats. When we called it in saying that these people have been dead for a while now, we were initially told to let it be. Why were we trying to take away their right to vote. Even after stating that these people were dead for 20 years and offering to mail or fax in their death certificates we were told to leave it alone. A few other calls and getting managers we got it straightened out. Also both people died in different states. They never lived in the state where we received the voter ID cards for them. How many other people would just leave it alone?
I believe voter fraud is more common then is being reported. Not many people look into it. If no one is looking no one is reporting it. Also look at the black panthers in Philadelphia. Even this year they are outside polling places. isn't voter intimidation against the law as well?
What language is this paper ballot printed in? English? Or the language the person selected when requesting a ballot?
You see, the US does not have an official language that is used for all government interaction like many other countries have. Partly because of this it is a requirement in many locations to supply ballots in any language the voter requests. This includes Navajo, Spanish, Russian and a whole bunch of other languages. This is one of the main reasons why electronic voting machines are required in some places. Printing ballots in obscure African languages was not going to happen.
One way out of this is for English to become the official and only government interaction language for the US. Another is for all government interaction to be done in some electronic fashion with the screen displaying whatever language the user selects, probably up to and including Klingon.