more on THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 15:27:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Karl Auerbach <karl () cavebear com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Fwd: THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.0 (Cannonade)


On Sat, 8 May 2004, Dave Farber wrote:

> I was born and raised in Jersey City in the Hague era. I was told that it
> was common to require voters to show how they voted (often by watchers
> looking over their shoulder).

In most cases the voter does not get to keep the paper that shows the
choices made - this is true for systems in which paper is a voter
verification mechanism and audit trail and also for systems in which the
paper is the actual ballot (in fact, for the latter systems, the paper
must be inserted into the ballot box for it to become effective, thus
making it effectively impossible for a voter to walk away with a paper
that is undeniably a record of the choices made.)

[I'm associated with the Open Voting Consortium -
http://www.openvotingconsortium.org - so I prefer approach in which the
paper *is* the ballot rather those in which the paper is merely an audit
mechanism.]

As you say, there is room for coercion of voters in those systems that
allow the voter to obtain a paper receipt that shows the choices made.

By-the-way, there has been concern expressed about the use of small
wireless cameras, placed by an early morning voter, that photographs
voter's activities - this is akin to the cameras that have been placed on
automatic teller machines.  That kind of thing is a threat to all voting
systems, paperless or not.

                --karl--

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