New York City Wants To Revive Old Voting Machines

McGruber writes "The NY Times reports, 'New York City has spent $95 million over the past few years to bring its election process into the 21st century, replacing its hulking lever voting machines with electronic scanners. But now, less than three years after the new machines were deployed, election officials say the counting process with the machines is too cumbersome to use them for the mayoral primary this year, and then for the runoff that seems increasingly likely to follow as soon as two weeks later. In a last-ditch effort to avoid an electoral embarrassment, New York City is poised to go back in time: it is seeking to redeploy lever machines, a technology first developed in the 1890s, for use this September at polling places across the five boroughs. The city's fleet of lever machines was acquired in the 1960s and has been preserved in two warehouses in Brooklyn, shielded from dust by plastic covers."

Comments

Lever machines just work

[WOOFYGOOFY]

And do not need to be replaced.

OK we're all done here.

Re:Lever machines just work

[fustakrakich]

Yes, but selling voting machines creates jobs. Why do you hate free enterprise?

Re:Lever machines just work

[Princeofcups]

And do not need to be replaced.

OK we're all done here.

Stop the luddite love. Of course voting machines can be made more efficient and more secure with modern technology. It's just that the people implementing them are criminals and the politicians buying them are corrupt. Take away the profit angle, add accountability with real consequences, with a oversight board with integrity, and we could have that great new system. As long as it is a money grab, we will continue to get crap.

Re:Lever machines just work

[hobarrera]

Horse-pulled carridges just work, and don't need to be replaced.

Re:Lever machines just work

[jd2112]

The problem with election reform is the people who have benefited from the current corrupt system are in charge of reforming it.

Re:Lever machines just work

[aled]

Horse-pulled carridges just work, and don't need to be replaced.

Indeed. Finally someone talking sense at Slashdot.

Re:Lever machines just work

[ArhcAngel]

Where is badanalogyguy when you need him?

The automobile replaced the horse drawn carriage because it was more efficient and eventually faster than said carriage. People gradually started relying more on the auto than the horse and the market tipped. Electronic voting machines aren't any faster and they have not proven to be any more efficient. The only real benefit is the instantaneous vote count but as others have pointed out that functionality could have been easily bolted on to existing machines?

Re:Lever machines just work

[Intrepid imaginaut]

No, sounds like the janitor in Scrubs tbh.

Re:Lever machines just work

[TitusGroan8856]

here in the UK we cast our ballots on paper, they are now machine readable, but they can still be counted by hand if needs be. The nice part is that there is a paper trail so a shedload more reliable than those button push roulette-machines that the US seems to prefer.

Re:Lever machines just work

[grantspassalan]

Of course they don't have to be replaced, but they have to be modified so they can be connected to the Internet in order that they can be remotely compromised by the politicians currently in power or other hackers.

Re:Lever machines just work

[Eunuchswear]

The bad bit of the UK system is that it's technicaly possible to match votes to voters.

(There is a serial number on the ballot paper which can be matched up with the stub you sign. It's claimed that this is to deal with cases of impersonation - if, when you turn up, someone has voted claiming to be you they can throw the bad vote out).

Re: Lever machines just work

[Xeranar]

Nice attempt to plant a seed of conspiracy while offering no proof. The machines are electromechanical wheel counters, like an old tabulating machine. They can be rigged but require additional reels and a secondary piece to manipulate them. It's why they're practically unhackable.

Re:Lever machines just work

[RockDoctor]

OK we're all done here.

Nope.

How on EARTH did the USA end up with such an incredibly cumbersome system? OR worse : such a set of interlinked, mutually incompatible and incoherent systems? There was a deranged genius? Someone thought it would be a good idea to ask people 74 questions on one day, then hope for an answer, rather than ask them several times over successive days?

I don't have a horse in this race ; but one horse clearly needs a bullet in the head, while the other needs to be flogged into the crowd, to beat down opposition. Who gets the bullet, and who gets the short whip (with a VERY angry wasp glued to the tip!?)?

Feel the burn

[Rlindstr]

The lever machines will increase the caloric burn of the voters. Another attempt to get the populace into better shape.

Re:Feel the burn

[IonOtter]

Gotta burn off all those giant sodas somehow...

and some can see leaning up and work on who you ar

[Joe_Dragon]

and some can see leaning up and work on who you are voteing for.

Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[WillAdams]

At least these have a paper trail though --- anything's an improvement over ephemeral electrons for counting enumerating election results.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[brunes69]

This is all we use in Canada for every election at every level. It works fine. You have 100% paper trail, electronic tallying speed, no "hanging chaff" nonsense. It's a tried and true technology that has been around for decades and decades and decades. I don't know why the US goofs around with these other systems, other then PORK PORK PORK PORK PORK

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[compro01]

Simpler still : #2 pencils and a room full of Mk1 eyeballs.

Re: Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[mrattner]

We use a similar tech in San Francisco. Except instead of filling in circles, we draw lines with a special pen. I have no idea why it's so hard for everyone else to make a system this simple.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Penguinisto]

You pretty much nailed it.

Oftentimes the government wants to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading, in spite of the older tech working just fine.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[CharlieG]

But that is what the new nyc machines are. Paper ballot, pen, paper, and a scanner, but the voters and poll workers still have not figured it out. They make you wait on line to find out which line to wait in to get your ballot, then wait on line to get the ballot(and sign for it) the you have to fill it in where they can see you, but not your ballot, then you bring it to the scanning area, and the whole process takes more Room than the lever machines and walking from point a to b. last election, we had lines around the block to get into get your ballot, and with the levers, I never had more than 5 people in front of me

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually that is how the "electronic" voting in NYC works right now. You fill out a paper ballot, and it gets scanned. They want to get rid of that, and go back to the old lever machines.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[dmbasso]

And with a little bit of encryption you can make it tamper proof: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izddjAp_N4I

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[sconeu]

I'm blind and handless, you insensitive clod!!!

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Antipater]

You pretty much nailed it.

Oftentimes the government wants to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading, in spite of the older tech working just fine.

The older tech NOT working fine was a huge scandal during the 2000 election. "Hanging chad" is still a household term.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Darinbob]

US goofs around with electronic voting because of the panic after Bush v Gore election. Seriously, a large segment of the population panicked! Money was granted by government to improve voting, then election officials went overboard buying new machines without actually knowing anything about the technology, and businesses quickly went to work creating the snake oil to feed the demand. What do you expect from a population that uses lots of technology while remaining ignorant of how technology works?

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[JDG1980]

This is all we use in Canada for every election at every level. It works fine. You have 100% paper trail, electronic tallying speed, no "hanging chaff" nonsense. It's a tried and true technology that has been around for decades and decades and decades.

Handwritten voting can work, but what do they do when the voter is physically unable to hold a pencil? Or, for that matter, if they're illiterate?

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Darinbob]

Hanging chad was not a problem. The population essentially is ignorant of statistics. The Florida election was a tie, plain and simple.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[JDG1980]

One investigator finally reproduced the problems. You know what it took to reproduce the problem? Trying to punch through a stack of multiple ballots. The ballots near the bottom were not punched all the way through and often had either dimples or hanging chads.

What happened was that the "butterfly ballot" was supposed to have been placed on a template, and then the voter was supposed to use the stylus to punch the ballot. The chad would then fall off into a groove in the template (the ballot holes were in the center of the sheet of paper). The problem was that the groove got clogged up from the large number of chads (remember, people don't just vote for POTUS, but for two dozen or so state and local positions as well). Once the groove was clogged, it blocked the chads from coming out of the ballot.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[LaughingRadish]

I spent some time as a poll official. As part of that job, I had to help people vote paper ballots with fill-bubbles who couldn't figure it out for themselves. Of course, I was forbidden from telling people who or what to vote for, or from offering any comments. The marks also had to be made by the voter's hand. Most of the people with trouble constantly made illegible squiggly marks all over the ballot instead of bubbling in neatly. People who did manage to vote by themselves also had problems. I was able to see their voted ballots because they ignored the instructions to keep the ballot concealed in the provided folder. Instead they waved the ballots over their heads for everyone to see. These too were often marked illegibly. The poll-watchers could only shrug sympathetically to me when this sort of thing happened. Voters have three tries to do it right and after that, too bad. A few people managed to get past the official guarding the ballot box and dumped their illegible ballot in before the official could react. There's another source of bad ballots.

I think New York might be trying to solve problems like these.

Other problems we had were cases of the adult child, who could barely speak or read English, was helping an elderly parent who couldn't speak or read English at all, and so I had to help. I very clearly caught many of these sons pointing to particular candidates or measures saying "Mark here". They were warned several times about this, but ultimately I couldn't do anything besides accept the ballot. Again the poll watchers just shrugged.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[dfenstrate]

This is all we use in Canada for every election at every level. It works fine. You have 100% paper trail, electronic tallying speed, no "hanging chaff" nonsense. It's a tried and true technology that has been around for decades and decades and decades. I don't know why the US goofs around with these other systems, other then PORK PORK PORK PORK PORK

New Hampshire and a number of other states use the bubble sheets, for the reasons you state. Try to focus your smug, superior attitude on the State of New York.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me hold your hand. The logic is quite simple:

1. In 2000, there were numerous ballots with "hanging chads" or dimples, almost all exclusively in the position for the Gore vote. Hence the Gore campaign suing Florida to count those ballots for Gore.
2. The only known way for that particular phenomena to happen with the ballots is to attempt to punch through more than one ballot at the voting booth.

The only reason a voter would have more than one ballot is if he is attempting to commit election fraud, and if nearly all of those ballots were meant for Gore, then it is an organized attempt to inflate Gore's numbers.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[EmperorOfCanada]

Often on US ballots there are 8 zillion things to vote on, president, congress, senate, dog-catcher, judges, propositions, etc.

A pure paper vote is going to be filled out wrong 99% of the time.

I am a huge fan of electronic voting machines that print out your ballot and in clear text it lays out who and what you voted for. Then you take the paper ballot and put it in a ballot box. Then when the vote counting happens the computers can feed out a preliminary vote in seconds which is followed by the official count of the paper ballots themselves. The paper ballots would have the final say if there were any disagreement between them and the machines.

A system like this would increase security in many ways in that if someone tampered with the machines the paper ballots would effectively let anyone audit their own vote. And if the paper ballots are messed with they will disagree with the computer tally giving cause for an investigation. So to mess with an election you would now have to mess with both.

I certainly hope that everyone on slashdot agrees that computer only polling stations are about as secure as Windows 98.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[zippthorne]

That doesn't make any sense at all.. the setup time for the huge voting machines is much bigger than for the *one* much smaller counting machine per precinct and the several collapsible tables with velcro markers. Further, the mechanical machines require an election worker to prep the machine by pulling a side-lever before each vote.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[ebno-10db]

last election, we had lines around the block to get into get your ballot, and with the levers, I never had more than 5 people in front of me

That doesn't jibe with my experience. On Long Island we used to have the lever machines, and switched to the electronically scanned paper ballots a few years back (I'm almost certain they're the same as in NYC). No problems whatsoever that I saw.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[zippthorne]

Markers are superior to #2 pencils, whose principle "feature" is that they are pretty hard on the pencil hardness scale, and therefore will last longer in daily use. Someone with a weak grip might not be able to make a dark enough mark. Worse, pencil marks can be erased. Great for a student taking a test, not so great for a municipality having an election....

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Guspaz]

It's not what we use in Canada on every level of election, because the Federal government has no say in how provincial and municipal elections are done (that's up to the provincial government's elections body). Electronic voting has been used at other levels in the past. Maybe it still is, all I can say is that we tried it with the Quebec municipal elections years ago, and it was such a disaster that the Quebec elections commission banned electronic voting for umpteen years to come.

In terms of the actual process, after the polls close, the Deputy Returning Officer (the person responsible for the individual poll) counts the votes by hand, assisted by the poll clerk, with either the candidates or (far more likely) their representatives serving as witness. When the count in a particular ballot box is complete, the Deputy Returning Officer telephones the riding's Returning Officer (responsible for all polls in that riding) to verbally deliver the preliminary results for that box (in reality the call is answered by a phone pool, written on a scrap of paper, and delivered by hand to the next person in the pipeline). Only here are any electronics (other than telephone) involved: in order to be reported quickly to the public and media, Elections Canada employees enter each poll's results into a computer, and the results are sent to Elections Canada via an encrypted dialup connection (admittedly it was a few years ago that I did that job, but the riding's Elections Canada office is a temporary office rental for the duration of the election period, and probably still uses dialup today). These are not the official results, but serve to get the preliminary results out quickly to the press and public. Once all ballot boxes at the poll are counted, the Deputy Returning Officer re-seals the ballot boxes with the official results documents and delivers them to the Returning Officer. The preliminary results are validated against the official documents and published as the official figures. Normally the validation happens very quickly (within a few days), but officially they have up to three weeks to accommodate delays in delivery.

By this method, you get both immediate preliminary results that are pretty darned accurate, and also official certified results shortly after (in case the person at the riding office made a typo or something).

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[MouseTheLuckyDog]

The punch ballots that were a problem in 2000 were working fine for years; it was only that particular election where they suddenly become "flawed".

Let us remember those punch ballets were just a newer version of the Hollerith card; something /.ers should be familiar with.
In Chicago we were constantly told of two things after we were done.. Run your hand over the card to catch any loose chads. If you wanted to, you could look at the number of every hole pumched and compare it to the ballet to make sure that everything is OK. As long as the ballots are OK ( say the polling place did not get flooded and the ballots get soggy ) there really is no excuse.

What really happened was that ALGore called a bunch of Democratic voters stupid, tried to get a bunch of judges to rule that they didn't know what they were doing, drag an economy that was getting sluggish into an even worse one, so he could become President.

Then afterwards to prop him up Democrats went around saying we need new voting machines. So now we spend billions on new voting machines which do not work as well. Shoot the ballot I filled out last time looked like it was designed for a third grader.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[ChrisMaple]

It's too easy to make a mistake with a marker, and then have to get a new ballot. It's too easy to spoil the ballot.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[peragrin]

If what your saying was true, then why did gore and bush each take the wrong side in the scandal?

Truly independent investigators counted the results in both Gore's method and Bush's Method.

The result was the Gore's method would have given Bush a clear victory and Bush's method would have given it to Gore.

So stop basing your false realties on lies. If The Democrats were trying to rig the election why did they pick a method that would guarantee they would lose? Oh right your an idiot.

Re:Even simpler, #2 pencils and a scanning tool

[Howitzer86]

Maybe, but its probably this: Somebody knows somebody... quid pro quo. I pick you to make new voting machines, you donate to my campaign for re-election.

electronic voteing makes it easier to cheat and co

[Joe_Dragon]

electronic voteing makes it easier to cheat and cover it up.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[Synerg1y]

why can't you put a lever machine in a booth?

a technology first developed in the 1890s

[Culture20]

You know, I redeploy fire regularly. It's a technology first developed in pre-history.

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[wagnerrp]

Where can I buy one of these fancy nuclear furnaces and stove tops?

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[iggymanz]

and you start that fire how? my stove has an electric sparker, and my furnace an electric ignition plug

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[Culture20]

Flint. Again, pre-history.

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[iggymanz]

are you very sure that's flint and not the modern superior man-made high tech ferrocerium you're using?

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[Culture20]

Yep, an actual flint rock.
FYI, ferrocium is an iron substitute, not flint. Flint is the hard substance that scrapes the molten flakes from the steel striker (or the rusty rock). With ferrocium, a steel scraper scrapes pieces from the ferrocium since it's softer than the steel.

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[iggymanz]

yes, it's quite a superior alternative to making sparks with a rock on iron alloy. That's what I use for my propane torch and for the lighter we use a few times a year on birthday candles.

Re:a technology first developed in the 1890s

[Eunuchswear]

Where can I buy one of these fancy nuclear furnaces and stove tops?

In France.

(But I prefer fire for the stove top. Nuke works ok for the oven).

Project Managment

[avandesande]

Before spending 95 million they should have leased 4 or 5 of the new machines and simulated a election sequence.

Re:Project Managment

[ericloewe]

What? Why try stuff? That takes time! Think of the precious time you save by not trying out a cheap sample before commiting to a multi-million dollar contract! And it's electronic, it must be awesome! Besides, if something is wrong with it, it's the taxpayers' problem, not yours.

Also, just for you, and only for the next two hours, I'll give you, not one, not two, not three, but a five percent discount on the 100 million something this nice usually costs. I'll even throw in a generous campaign contribution if you pay cash!

Re:Project Managment

[Penguinisto]

Err, wait - why simulate something you've already done before, ad-nauseum? It's not like they're trying out some new and unproven technology here, or even a different set of use cases...

Re:Project Managment

[ericloewe]

To see if the machines work properly, if they're fast enough/private enough, if they don't break down every 10 minutes, if their output is good, if there are any problems that only become evident once you place a bunch of volunteers in front them,...

It seems that something did pop up, so the suggestion is warranted.

How Much You Wanna Bet...

[IonOtter]

How much you wanna bet, there was some union worker who's been in the job for 20 years, and saw this coming? They saw it coming and said, "Rather than send them to the scrap yard, we're just gonna squirrel these babies away in this warehouse here," and rolled all those giant hunks of metal into storage in counties all over NY. I bet they got wrapped up, too.

Gonna be a lot of nostalgic voters this election.

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[compro01]

Where's the anti-union? I'm seeing "Experienced union guy utilizes foresight and keeps the old equipment in storage, ready to counter the impending disaster caused Management's latest bright idea". Seems rather pro-union from where I'm sitting.

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[Darinbob]

Now what if they forgot how to configure the voting machines? We could end up with La Guardia as mayor again!

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[ryanmc1]

Are you kidding me? Where in the article does it say anything about a Union worker saving the machines? If unions were in charge of the machines I think they would have been destroyed based on the quote below (which is actually from the article).

“It’s absurd that in a 21st-century New York, we would go back and vote on machines first used in the 19th century when Tammany Hall controlled the elections,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union. “The voter confusion that’s going to be caused is unfathomable.”

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[compro01]

If unions were in charge of the machines I think they would have been destroyed based on the quote below (which is actually from the article)

Citizens Union isn't a labour union.

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[steelfood]

This one's actually not about union vs. non-union, despite the "union worker" in the statement. The "union worker" is merely a fact of the matter, because all lower-level city workers are unionized. So there's no non-union alternative to even consider.

It's about real people doing the work vs. the idiots at the top calling the shots. The real people have foresight and a strong sense of pragmatism. The idiots in charge have their heads in the clouds and their hand in the pork barrel.

Re:How Much You Wanna Bet...

[Howitzer86]

What, you're not allowed to talk about union workers?

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[Joe_Dragon]

maybe it's just a old story. I think it was back in the old Chicago days

Re:electronic voteing makes it easier to cheat and

[lart2150]

right because there's never forensic evidence unlike ballet box stuffing.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[Anonymous Coward]

A lever machine is its own voting booth.

http://uploads.static.vosizneias.com/2013/03/lever_voting_machine.jpg

Notice the curtains.

A better explanation of problems

[Spillman]

This article explains the problems better.

In still others, workers seemed flummoxed by procedures that accompanied the new equipment, especially for accepting ballots when the scanners did not function. At times the frustration boiled over, and there were shouting matches between voters and poll workers.

At least some of the problems are caused by incompetent election officials. Perhaps that could work on reading comprehension?

Re:A better explanation of problems

[Minwee]

At times the frustration boiled over, and there were shouting matches between voters and poll workers.

This is New York City. I think someone misspelled "shooting".

Re:A better explanation of problems

[Kaenneth]

But guns are illegal in NYC you silly person. So nobody gets shot there.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[PolygamousRanchKid]

I think it was back in the old Chicago days

Given the recent IRS shenanigans, I think we have the new Chicago days now.

Re:Please log in

[sexconker]

"In order to access our Web site, your Web browser must accept cookies from NYTimes.com"

NYT can suck my 8 inch non-dairy creamer. Anybody have a copy of the article?

I'll summarize it for you:

We're the New York Times and we're trying to remain relevant by sucking our own dicks non-stop! Just like New York City itself!

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[GodInHell]

The ones in new york are enclosed by a built in booth with curtains that close when you lift the lever to start voting and open when you pull the lever to vote. If you're REALLY concerned that you're being watched just adjust the curtain.

Re:electronic voteing makes it easier to cheat and

[robot256]

ballet box stuffing.

I hope they don't do this regularly. If I pay for a box seat at the ballet, I sure don't want to be sitting on somebody's lap!

Louisiana sold its old lever voting machines

[Dareth]

Louisiana sold its old lever voting machines to Mexico when it got the new "touch" voting machines.

You would not believe how pissed off the Mexicans were when Edwin Edwards was voted in as President of Mexico.

Re:electronic voteing makes it easier to cheat and

[CAIMLAS]

Depending on who it is, I typically don't mind having them sit in my lap, though.

why?

[Tom]

Ever since the US election system hit the international news in the first Bush election, the rest of the world has collectively been shaking its head and wondering why the US doesn't adopt the system that almost everyone else uses successfully: Paper and pens.

Every argument against it has been solidly debunked.

So what is it that feeds your fascination with deploying the most convoluted, crazy voting machines instead of using the more reliable machines you have in abundance - humans?

Re:why?

[amorsen]

The US tends to do lots of elections, which means that counting speed is more of a concern there than elsewhere. At the same time, community involvement in counting can be difficult to achieve uniformly across such a diverse country.

Paper and pen is still superior of course, but it makes sense that the US is where they look for alternatives.

Now if you could explain to me why the current Danish government goes "Oh shiny! Does it come with a 3D screen? When can we get them?" whenever anyone shows them an electronic voting machine... Luckily Danish politics are such that the government does not always get what it asks for, but sanity is unlikely to prevail forever.

Re:why?

[ebno-10db]

the rest of the world has collectively been shaking its head and wondering why the US doesn't adopt the system that almost everyone else uses successfully: Paper and pens.

A poster above said that in Canada (or at least his part of it) they use the "fill in the circle w/ a pencil", which is then electronically scanned. A paper trail is also kept for recounts. That's exactly the system used in New York. I live on Long Island, not the city, but we have the same voting machines and they work fine.

Re:why?

[Tom]

I call bullshit.

Other countries are also diverse, and they manage to get it done. "Community involvement" is often low, but the political parties have an interest in watching each other, so there's pretty much a guarantee that enough volunteers will show up, if only to keep eyes on the other guys.

I don't see a political reason to look for alternatives. I see some others that have to do with lobbying and money and other legalized forms of bribery.

Re:why?

[steelfood]

Becaue Diebold *ahem* I mean Premier Election Solutions needs their payday too. Duh.

Re:why?

[danaris]

I call bullshit.

Other countries are also diverse, and they manage to get it done. "Community involvement" is often low, but the political parties have an interest in watching each other, so there's pretty much a guarantee that enough volunteers will show up, if only to keep eyes on the other guys.

As someone who actually lives in the US....

No. No, there isn't. Political involvement here is quite low, and the odds of not being able to find sufficient volunteers to count votes and keep the other guys honest in a large number of precincts—especially more rural ones—are very, very high.

As a for instance, it would not surprise me in the least if the voting district where I used to live (a couple of years ago) couldn't muster more than 2-3 volunteers total.

Dan Aris

Good. Work fine, harder to hack en masse.

[jbeach]

Like the subway system currently in NY also. Just like some mainframes, also. Fix something that needs fixing first.

Cripes this is ridiculous

[kilodelta]

RI went paper ballot over 30 years ago. All you do is mark up the ballot then feed it to the scanner. Couldn't be easier. The only time it gets interesting is when we have a ballot like that we had in the 2012 election. There was a federal, state, city, and then referendum ballot and they were printed on BOTH sides. That confused a lot of people.

Re:Cripes this is ridiculous

[bussdriver]

Did Bloomberg decide to run again? Term limits can't stop him...

Re:Cripes this is ridiculous

[Minwee]

Rhode Island Population: 1.05 Million New York Population: 19.47 Million

What might work for Rhode Island doesn't necessarily work for New York.

Canada, with a population of 35 million and over 70 times the land mass of New York state, is still able to conduct federal elections using only pencils and paper. Is Canadian drawing-an-x-on-a-sheet-of-paper-and-then-reading-it-again technology so far ahead of what New York is capable of?

Re:Cripes this is ridiculous

[ebno-10db]

Rhode Island Population: 1.05 Million New York Population: 19.47 Million

This New Yorker claims that's irrelevant. A bigger area just means more polling places. A larger population just means more machines per polling place. However you do it people are supposed to vote one at a time. Some things scale just fine.

Re:Cripes this is ridiculous

[gl4ss]

RI went paper ballot over 30 years ago

Rhode Island Population: 1.05 Million
New York Population: 19.47 Million

What might work for Rhode Island doesn't necessarily work for New York.

this pops up every fucking time the discussion is about voting mechanics.
look, it doesn't matter. not one bit. once you're over 1 000 people it scales infinitely and for below that you only need couple of people. even if you're using a paper ballot with a single circle in it. or multiple circles. usual way to handle congestion at a single high density place is that people are pre-arranged to go to a specific sub-place at the voting place - so a school can have multiple voting places situated in it. in fact the whole system scales worse with bad population density as then there's less such public places to use for the polls.

the only reasonable argument for it not scaling is that "but we live in a country with no volunteers for political stuff", which would cut the whole thing at 1 000 again - and it's simply not true for usa anyways. then again for some stupid reason america doesn't have the polls on days which make the most sense so that people would have free time to vote and count them - sundays.

Re:Cripes this is ridiculous

[Eunuchswear]

Amusing. You get your election news from the Iranian government.

Re:Always wondered

[alen]

that's what the constitution says for federal elections. the first or second Tuesday in november. everyone else piggy backs on this day to make things simpler

Re:Dear America,

[Aerokii]

I know the meanings of all the words you're saying but I'm having a difficult time actually understanding what you're talking about in the voting context. Please elaborate.

Re:Old dogs

[Richy_T]

The old vote rigging was done by people in the mechanics union. Can't get them to touch electrical.

That's not the point

[Pollux]

No one said the machines didn't work. The point is that going back to old voting machines is an epic failure of the political system in the 21st century.

Electronic voting is very simple, as long as it follows one cardnal rule: include the paper trail.

1) Create a PoV (point-of-vote) touchscreen machine w/ touchscreen that's networkable. When the user is done voting, the machine sends an electronic tally to a state / national database to keep count.
2) PoV machine also prints out a receipt for every voter after voting is complete, with detailed results that the voter can read and visually verify. Receipt includes a machine-readible 2D barcode.
3) Receipt gets fed into an on-site audit machine that's not networked. It reads in all the paper receits, scans the barcodes, and keeps a separate count on-site. It's count is audited against the count in the state / national database as the first layer of verifying vote integrity.
4) A random sampling of polling places perform paper counts of the receipts, which are then matched with both the machine-audit count and state/national database count as a second layer of verifying vote integrity.

Bam, there you have it. Electronic voting with instantaneous results providing continual updates regarding vote counts which still require two levels of auditing including a paper-trail to preserve vote integrity. And all this could have been done with technology that's been around for 15 years.

But capitalism has messed it up. Diebold gets contracts, palms get greased, and citizens get screwed.

Re:That's not the point

[afidel]

Meh, we just used off the shelf scantron ballots here, fast to tally and easily verified by both the voter and auditors plus everyone who's been through the US education system in the last 40+ years is very familiar with them.

Re: That's not the point

[Anonymous Coward]

A lever voting machine meets nearly every criteria. They can even include punched tape logs.

So really all we ever NEEDED was to retrofit an Ardunio to make the mechanical devices record electronically.

Re:That's not the point

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the voter get to keep the receipt? If so, that's a nonstarter. Otherwise they can - and would - be used to sell votes. Vote for me! Get a free iPod!!

.

Re:That's not the point

[hrvatska]

PoV machine also prints out a receipt for every voter after voting is complete, with detailed results that the voter can read and visually verify. Receipt includes a machine-readible 2D barcode.

A detailed receipt verifying who a person voted for is a bad idea. It can be used to verify that purchased votes were actually delivered. Also, lots of people would not be able to vote freely if there was the possibility of a paper trail of how they voted.

Re:That's not the point

[currently_awake]

It's important that you NOT have proof of who you voted for when you leave the voting station. Having proof means you can sell your vote, or get blackmailed to vote for their candidate. The reason behind voting in private instead of public show of hands is to keep the voting unbiased.

Re:That's not the point

[archer, the]

Pollux was not suggesting people take the paper version home. It gets fed into a separate device before the voter leaves the polling place.

Technically speaking, a voter could take a picture of the paper version before depositing it in the audit device, but then a voter could take a picture of the touchscreen, scantron, punchcard, or levers, whichever type of system is used.

Re:That's not the point

[DoubleJ1024]

Same thing we did back home. It took longer for me to sign the voter registry than it did to vote. When I moved to my present state we use those Diebold machines, and it is such a joke with how they are put together.

Re:That's not the point

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

2) PoV machine also prints out a receipt for every voter after voting is complete, with detailed results that the voter can read and visually verify. Receipt includes a machine-readible 2D barcode.

That barcode is a bad idea - it is a point in which the human-readable part of the ballot can differ with the machine read part of the ballot.

Better to design the ballot such that what the human voter reads and verifies is the same as what the machine reads - make it tabular or something so simple that it is not hard for either to read and understand with a very low error rate.

Re:That's not the point

[gl4ss]

if it's a machine printed code it could just as well be both machine and human readable in the modern world.
I'm still perplexed by the fixation on having some kind of machine on the system though. You would think that volunteers would scale in USA, since it does everywhere else. especially when people in usa seem to be so fixated on the elections, having parties over them, absolutely HUGE party conventions..
we do all elections by hand.. sometimes there's hundreds of candidates too(for parliament for example).

if you're going to go machine counted, then at least get rid of voting districts except for local elections.. would fix that gerrymangering of yours.

Re:That's not the point

[hjf]

How we roll in Argentina:
1. Show up at the voting place. The guy in charge and some auditors verify your ID, cross your name on a list, and give you the blank ballot. (this year the list has your picture in it, since the new national identity card have photo and fingerprint digitalized. totalitarism ftw)
2. Go into the so-called "dark room" (a classroom. elections are held in public schools, on sundays). Choose your candidate (touchscreen).
3. Place your ballot in a special (idiot-proof) printer
4. fold your ballot, go outside, and in front of the witnesses, put your ballot in the box.
5. The guy in charge stamps your national identity card and you're done

(before this: same process but you went into the dark room and picked your ballot from a table, and put it in an envelope)

when voting is over:
1. The person in charge opens the box, and counts ALL votes in front of the auditors
2. he fills a form with the results, signs it, and gives it to the post employee ready to "telegraph" (ancient terminology)
3. He picks up all ballots, puts them into the box again (sorted). All other accessories (pens, remaining ballots, attendance form, empty envelopes, stamps, stamp pads, and any other garbage left) are also placed in the box.
4. The box is sealed and given to some soldier (the military is in charge of transporting the boxes).

Preliminary results are ready usually 2-3 hours after voting is over. Final count takes a couple of months

Re:That's not the point

[hrvatska]

A picture of the levers on lever voting machine is not proof of anything. When using a lever voting machine you enter a booth and pull a big lever which closes a curtain behind you. None of the levers used for making selections on the ballot are set. Until the big lever is pulled again you are free to make and change any of the levers. Once the big lever is pulled selections made with the levers are registered and all the levers are returned to their starting positions. Any pictures that might be taken are proof of nothing except that the levers were set a certain way at one point before the vote was registered. It doesn't confirm what the final vote really was. A detailed receipt on the other hand does say what your final vote was. Unless the receipt is issued outside the booth the person is free to take a picture with their mobile and transmit it in hardly any time at all.

Re:That's not the point

[myth24601]

Pollux was not suggesting people take the paper version home. It gets fed into a separate device before the voter leaves the polling place.

Technically speaking, a voter could take a picture of the paper version before depositing it in the audit device, but then a voter could take a picture of the touchscreen, scantron, punchcard, or levers, whichever type of system is used.

In some states it is illegal to take a picture of your ballot.

Re:That's not the point

[Howitzer86]

This thread is a meme in of itself.

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

1) That's ILLEGAL, and no one would openly advertise like that.

2) Simply make the 'voting receipt' have no identifying info on it (other than voting location,voting machine serial number, and time to the minute), and then there's no proof that the receipt actually belongs to the voter. Who would pay for votes, with no actual way to verify?

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

A detailed receipt verifying who a person voted for is a bad idea. It can be used to verify that purchased votes were actually delivered.

No- it verifies that someone voted for the specified candidate(s). It does NOT verify that that specific person did so.

I can show you a receipt from Macy's for new sheets.... doesn't prove I was the one who bought the sheets.

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

Having proof means you can sell your vote, or get blackmailed to vote for their candidate.

Wrong.

  It verifies that someone voted for the specified candidate(s). It does NOT verify that that specific person did so.

I can show you a receipt from Macy's for new sheets.... doesn't prove I was the one who bought the sheets.

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

That barcode is a bad idea - it is a point in which the human-readable part of the ballot can differ with the machine read part of the ballot.

Meh- it's trivial to check. Do a re-count on, say, 1% of the ballots- and a certain percentage of those get the barcodes read and compared to the plain text. ANY discrepancies cause a full re-count and investigation.

Re:That's not the point

[petermgreen]

AIUI the USA has unusually complex elections, with often substantial numbers of propositions and elections for minor local positions (judges etc) whereas most other democracies have much simpler elections.

Not saying whether it is better or worse just saying it explains why they are more interested in automation.

Re:That's not the point

[laron]

May I offer two suggestions?
- Call the voting receipts "ballots" and treat them as the official vote in cases of doubt.
- If the local recount does not match the state database, two or three more polling places get selected for a recount.

Re:That's not the point

[Eunuchswear]

We (France) use a piece of paper.

You enter the polling place, pick up "n" peices of paper (one per candidate, preprinted with the name, party and so on) and an envelope.

You enter the polling booth, close the curtain, put one of the pieces of paper in the envelope. Chuck the others in the bin or keep 'em in your pockets as souvenirs if you want.

Then you go up to the guys at the polling box, show one of 'em your papers (identity card, passport) they find your name in the list, get you to sign on the line, he says your name "Mr Eunuchswea...r", the other person opens the slit in the polling box, you stick the envelope in the box, he says "...has voted" and closes the slit.

Afterwards they ask you if you want to come help with the count.

The count is easy. The number of envelopes should match the number of signatures, if an envelope contains anything other than one official voting paper it is counted as spoiled, otherwise it is clearly a vote for one or other candidate.

No fuss, no muss, the result is usualy announced within hours of the vote being closed. When there have been attempts to cheat (one poll monitor was found with his socks filled with ballots) they're easy to detect.

Who needs computers anyway?

Re:That's not the point

[Eunuchswear]

Nonsense.

Your receipt from Macy's is worthless.

A paper showing that someone voted for a candidate could be worth money.

Just how did you get hold of someone's vote reciept? Why did they give it to you?

If you are a woman and your husband asks to see you reciept (under threat of physical force) what are you going to show him?

Re:That's not the point

[Eunuchswear]

There should only ever be one peice of information about how many votes were cast for each candidate.

If there are more what do you do if they are inconsistent? Which is the real vote?

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

Just how did you get hold of someone's vote reciept?

Got it out of the trash. (You don't think every single voter would take it home, do you?)

Why did they give it to you?

Maybe my boss will fire me if I don't vote for candidate 'A', and their boss will fire them unless they vote for candidate 'B', so we swapped. Doesn't matter- it cannot be proven that it is MY receipt.

If you are a woman and your husband asks to see you reciept (under threat of physical force) what are you going to show him?

The restraining order, followed by the divorce papers.

Re:That's not the point

[fredklein]

Easy answer: The text vote, as that is what the voter saw, read, and confirmed was correct. It makes no sense to commit vote fraud by changing the human-readable vote, and leave the barcode alone- he voter would call foul if the text vote wasn't what they chose. The only way to commit fraud is to make people think they voted the way they wanted to (ie; leave the human-readable vote alone), while changing the machine-readable one. And thus, the human-readable one is the one the voter actually wanted.

Re:That's not the point

[Mr. Freeman]

First of all, a receipt is a bad thing to give to people when voting. Why? Because it enables vote selling and makes voter coercion incredibly easy. The receipt allows either the coercer or the buyer to verify a vote. Second, you have major problems regarding vote verification. ALL votes need to be verified. If you only verify a random selection of votes then people with knowledge of which places will be audited know what machines to rig. Furthermore, if the voting machines are networked then the machines can be tampered with AFTER auditing by pushing malicious code to the machines remotely.

Sure, you could prevent all of this with lots and lots of design verification, but now we start to see the problem. It is incredibly difficult and expensive to design an electronic voting machine that is secure. It is even harder to verify that it is, in fact, secure. Furthermore, you really don't save any time or add any functionality over current systems because still have to verify votes by counting paper receipts. What you have in the end is an incredibly expensive, less secure, more complicated system than what we already have and you've gained no functionality whatsoever.

On the other hand, mechanical machines are easy to design, easy to verify, have a proven track record, are expensive neither to build nor maintain, and already exist. Why on Earth would we switch to another system? I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to fix what ain't broke, but electronic machines are nothing more than a way to break what ain't broke.

Re:That's not the point

[ebvwfbw]

In Maryland they got away from the lever machines because too many people had keys. It was supposed to only be a few trusted people. After a decade the Democrats mainly because they controlled everything in certain areas had keys and would make the machines say whatever they wanted. It had to be real bad for them to admit it was bad. So they went to a scan sheet method. Everyone got a receipt that corresponded to the ballot. So later you could and I did one time ask for my ballot. They found it, so it really was counted. Not sure if there is a way to find out if someone just filled out a bunch of ballots, however. What allegedly happened in Tampa Florida and they were all filled out for Al Gore about a week before the election. I don't recall whatever happened with that.

Re:That's not the point

[afidel]

That's fine if you are voting for one position, last general election i was voting for 27 different positions and 5 ballot issues.

Re:That's not the point

[Eunuchswear]

27 is a lot! What were they all? (Arranging to vote for 27 different posts on the same day sounds like a recipe for chaos.)

In France one could vote for:

President
Deputé (member of parliment)
Deputé European (MEP)
Conseille municipale
Conseille departmentale
Conseille regionale
and possibly various referenda.

(Frankly I think there are too many, but trying to sort out the region/departement/commune mess is a huge politcal hot potato).

These are run as two round elections - the first round will have all the candidates, if no candidate wins a majority then the second round will have the two or three highest scoring candidates from the first round.

Things are usualy arranged to avoid having two votes on the same day as that could lead to confusion.

Re:That's not the point

[afidel]

President
Congressman
Representative
Governor
State Auditor
State Attorney General
State Secretary of State
State Treasurer
State Senator
State Representative
County Executive
County representative
3x County at large representatives
Mayor
Local councilman
3x at large city councilman
14 state and county judges (this was how many were on the last ballot, there are more than this but I can't find a complete list right now)

Not all of those will be up for election each election, but those are all the positions that I vote for at least once each 6 years.

On top of that my state has a citizen led initiative process which means we generally have from three to five state ballot issues.

And then there are the local tax issues, each and every tax at the local level requires voter approval and there's a limit to both the percentage and the absolute dollar amount that a tax can collect so whenever inflation or demand for services increases enough they have to go back to the voters.

It's a lot to keep up with.

Re:That's not the point

[Eunuchswear]

President
Congressman
Representative

Reasonable (France has a weird senate that's indirecty elected, by the so-called "grandes electeurs" so they dont vote for Senator)

Governor

In France the equivalent (president of the Regional council) is elected by the regional councillors, more like a parlimentary system than a presidential one.

State Auditor
State Attorney General
State Secretary of State
State Treasurer

Bizzare, those are (or should be) non-political positions, why vote for them?

State Senator
State Representative

In France the "Region" is unicameral, so there's no Senate/House split at this level

County Executive
County representative
3x County at large representatives

Once again, in France the "county executive" - "President of the Departmental council" is elected by the equivalent of the county representatives.

Mayor
Local councilman
3x at large city councilman

Same here, the mayor is elected by the local councilmen.

14 state and county judges (this was how many were on the last ballot, there are more than this but I can't find a complete list right now)

Outside the US the idea of voting for judges is pretty rare. Judge is not seen as a politcal role.

As an outsider it seems to me:

1. You are voting for a lot of non-polilitcal positions. (18 of the 27 posts)
2. You have a bicameral system at two levels where France only has one (accounting for 1 more post)
3. You have the executive/legislator split at many levels where france has a more parlimentary system. (so you vote for Governor, County executive and Mayor, where in France these are all indirectly elected) (3 more posts).
4. What's the deal with the "at large" guys? We vote for one councilor at each of the Regional, Departmental (county) and Municipal levels)

But to each his own.

Re:That's not the point

[afidel]

The at-large positions are basically so that even if your interests are different from those in your immediate area that there is some chance of you being able to vote for a candidate that will represent your interests (ie I'm fairly liberal but my city is fairly conservative so my local representative at the county level is unlikely to share my political views but if I can help elect an at-large candidate there might be someone who I can voice my concerns to).

As far as the executive/legislative split, that's by design.

The state supreme court is trying to de-politicize judicial nominations but they're facing an uphill battle (recent graft cases where political bosses leaned on elected judges should have helped that but people are too damn partisan).

As far as the state level positions you say are non-political, the only way that would work is if it was also non-appointed (ie technocrats) because those positions shouldn't report to the governor.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[cayenne8]

maybe it's just a old story. I think it was back in the old Chicago days

In Chicago, they likely still have the same VOTES left in the machines too.....

how's that rust working out for you?

[swschrad]

last time NYC wore out a bunch of tic-tic-tic-ka-WHANG! lever machines, they bought all of Fargo's. in the 80s. I suspect a plain ol' warehouse in Brooklyn has allowed those things to get a tad rusty inside by now. they'll end up voting on scraps of paper bags and dipping fingers in purple ink on the way out.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[number6x]

Dan Rostenkowski used to tell a story about an old lady he once met who was from Hammond, Indiana. He recounted how the lady said that her will stipulated that she be buried in Cook County, Illinois when she died.

Rostenkowski asked why she wanted to be buried in Illinois when she was from Indiana?

She replied that she was a life long Democrat, from the days of FDR and she wanted to continue to support the party with her votes after she died.

Drawing lines

[Firethorn]

I saw a comparison somewhere in a document about proper ballot creation. It turned out that bubble sheets, which any student is likely intimately familiar with, is the most accurate, over even 'complete the arrow for the candidate you want to vote for'.

Plus, well, equipment is more available.

That document was fascinating - It's not that creating a good ballot is actually all that complex, but I'd still probably end up spending a few days doing it because there's a lot of little 'gotchas' out there.

Re:Please log in

[Minwee]

We're the New York Times and we're trying to remain relevant by sucking our own dicks non-stop! Just like New York City itself!

Just remember that you are limited to sucking only 16 oz at any one time.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree about the IRS shenanigans. None of the conservative groups that were examined were actually denied a 501(c)(4) status. Why was the only group denied a a 501(c)(4) status liberal? Who was bringing political pressure to not deny 501(c)(4) status to conservative groups that are clearly political in nature?

The one tech worse than touchscreens

[goodmanj]

Don't be fooled: this is not the Slashdot story you think it is. Why do we all hate touch-screen voting? One, because it's hackable, but two, because it doesn't leave a paper trail that can be used for a recount.

The electronic technology the city is using is a mark-on-paper, electronic scan system. It is, quite frankly, THE BEST electronic voting system ever designed: it's low-tech from the voter's side but fast on the officials' side. It has a zero-tech fallback in case of computer problems, and it allows manual recount of the actual ballots if necessary.

Lever machines are THE WORST manual voting system ever designed. They're complicated and confusing for the user, and while they're fast for officals to read, there is no recount: they do not store individual voters' intentions, only the total of all voters who used them. Just as bad, they are very hackable (mechanically), and if they fail, it's often hard to tell and impossible to fix on election day. They are, in every respect, worse than the punch-card systems that made election technology an issue in the first place.

Anybody who actually cares about election security should pick the optical scan system over the lever machine in a heartbeat. Why, then, are the voting officials complaining? Because they're worried that a recount would take too long with an optical scan system. The reason a recount would be faster with lever machines is BECAUSE THERE CAN BE NO RECOUNT. You just add up the totals on each machine, and you're done. But the true intentions of each voter are lost forever the moment they pull the lever and walk out of the booth.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[ebno-10db]

True that. All of it. Ok, I'm out of things to say.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[gl4ss]

wait a second - that's how these lever machines work? you pull a lever and it increases a number on the machine and that's it?? surely it can't be so retarded??? tell me it ain't so and the level produces some kind of paper to submit ?

who the fuck in their right mind would deploy such a system? I thought the lever systems referred to a machine that punches holes in some card, which while still retarded sounds a fuck ton more reasonable than voting with a one handed bandit.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[ebno-10db]

that's how these lever machines work? you pull a lever and it increases a number on the machine and that's it?

Yup.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[gl4ss]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_machine#Direct-recording_Voting_System

I guess New York really is mobster county.

Just baffling that a country priding in democratic process would use such a system. like, MAYBE, possibly use such a system for deciding what's for lunch but for anything else... solves the recount "problem" nicely though.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[goodmanj]

wait a second - that's how these lever machines work? you pull a lever and it increases a number on the machine and that's it??

Yup. It's just like a mechanical odometer, except it counts travesties of democracy instead of miles.

Re:The one tech worse than touchscreens

[goodmanj]

Just baffling that a country priding in democratic process would use such a system.

I can understand how it could get started in the late 19th century, when the nation was in love with gadgetry and overconfident in the power of democracy. But how it could continue past Watergate, much less 2000, is baffling.

Re:simpler elections

[ebno-10db]

In the US (AFAICT), they tend to have all of their election on one day in November: municipal, state, federal.

Correct. First Tuesday in November (IIRC unless Nov. 1 is a Tuesday, then using following Tuesday). The only exception I know of is the local school districts.

There's also the fact that in the US people vote for judges, sherifs, criminal prosectures, etc.

Some of it is silly. Whether judges are elected depends on the state and county (federal judges are always appointed). Voting for them is kind of silly because nobody knows who they are. I usually leave it blank or just vote for whichever party doesn't run my county.

Sheriff can be different. A few years back we elected a sheriff who was a big improvement. I don't think it's as bad as you say. If we had more than one election day we'd probably have an even lower turnout than we do now.

Re:What the cynic in me hears:

[ebno-10db]

What the cynic in me hears: "For whatever reason, we can't manipulate the tallies this year (was Diebold's bid too expensive?) so we have to go back to old-fashioned vote-counting fraud."

That's what I hear too. The old lever machines were supposedly pretty easy to rig, and I've saw no problems when we switched from lever machines to scantrons.

We darned done tried tat!!!

[betterprimate]

We done der tried tat and I didnt meant to vote for Hugh J. Grant! Dat der a rich summabich!

Dammit, shoulda learnd my left from my der right.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[hrvatska]

When we had lever machines in our voting district you had to pull big lever to close the curtain before you could vote. Once you were finished you pulled the big lever again and your votes were registered and the curtain opened.

Oh for pete's sakes.

[houbou]

The only reason the US and in particular right now, New York City has issues with elections is because of corruption. No matter what system, there is always someone being paid off. As long as there is PORK flying around, you'll never get an honest election going.

Funny

[ChrisMaple]

In a last-ditch effort to avoid an electoral embarrassment...

It's pretty much guaranteed that whoever NYC elects will be an embarrassment. Different voting technology won't help.

Finally

[bossk538]

The paper ballots introduced a few years ago really left a lot to be desired. You filled the things out at a desk with a visor that just about anyone can look over, and would be in plain sight to anyone who happened to be walking behind you. You put the ballot in a manilla envelope that would only partially cover it and walked across the room and fed into a reader, that was out in the open. Not one iota of privacy. With the voting booths, you pulled a lever and a curtain closed around you. You could probably change your clothes in the thing without anyone noticing.

Re:and some can see leaning up and work on who you

[Howitzer86]

Ahh the latest trend in online debate - accusing people that disagree with you of being paid shills. As though your ideas and beliefs are so righteous and pure that only the corrupt could ever disagree with them!

Re:Always wondered

[myth24601]

We have early voting just about everywhere now.

Newer is not always better

[Karmashock]

I drive a stick shift transmission. Nothing automatic about it. I think my engine has some computer components in it, but I believe they're only logging data... and don't actually accomplish anything vital.

Point is, my car works. And I would trust it a great deal more then a Google driverless car for example. And I'll tell you further, that I've had fewer mechanical problems with my car then most of my friends and family with much more complicated systems.

When it comes to voting you need a zero fail system. An electronic system is FINE if not superior IF it is ZERO fail.

The primary issue I've seen with these electronic voting systems is that they're badly designed. Period.

A badly designed digital system is going to be inferior to a refined hand crank system.

Stop farming the design out to one of these companies. Hold an open competition. Make it national if you like. Offer a prize. Set realistic goals for the prize that both encompass everything you need and try to exclude things you either do not need or actually shouldn't have at all (eg individual voter tracking).

Do that and I'd be very much surprised if we didn't get something a great deal better then whatever we've been getting from these e-voting companies.

uhuhhh

[WGFCrafty]

it ain't broke.... don't spend 1/10th of $1,000,000,000 to fix it.

False...

[gwolf]

Mexico's legislation regarding what is acceptable as a means of voting is quite strict, and while lever machines were accepted in 1910, they have never been used here. They became explicitly forbidden around 1988 (don't recall the exact date). The whole country votes with paper ballots; state legislatures can determine what gets used for local elections, but so far (fortunately!) only Jalisco and Coahuila have deployed e-voting machines. Sadly, I expect the number of e-voting machines to increase in the future elections. But no lever machines.

Re:Please log in

[sexconker]

Butthurt Bostoner is butthurt.

Wrong, kiddo.
West coast best coast. East coast least coast.