Fwd: THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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).

If we have paper receipts with the way the user voted on them I guarantee 
that politicians some place and maybe many places will ask to see them from 
voters and if denied favors from the politicians will vanish etc.

Please don't tell me that would be illegal (SO WHAT!! Look at Florida!).

Am I missing something??

Dave



Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 07:42:13 -0400
From: Barry Ritholtz <ritholtz () optonline net>
Subject: THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.
To: Dave Farber <dave () farber net>

Dave,

For IP, if you like:

Nick Confessore brings up the obvious (but overlooked) regarding requiring 
a paper receipt for touch screen voting.
Here's the relevant quote:


> THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.
> <http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/05/index.html#002962>http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/05/index.html#002962 
>
>
> I'm sitting here looking at a WalMart Receipt that has about 100 grocery 
> items listed on it by name, barcode number, price and quantity. It also 
> has a time stamp, my credit card number with the first digits x'd out and 
> the clerk's name and register number. It's about 15" long by 2.5 inches wide.
>
> The cash register that produced this receipt is operated 24 hours/day for 
> 365 days/year and there is usually a line of people waiting at the 
> checkout line. It takes a minimum wage grocery clerk about 4 seconds to 
> pop in a new roll of paper when it runs out. The information on this 
> receipt exceeds that which would be required for any election that I have 
> ever heard of. And the volume of receipts printed out by any store far 
> exceeds the volume produced by any voting machine. Think about it. The 
> average clerk probably scans grocery items 100-times faster than the 
> average person votes, and people pass through the cashier line a lot 
> faster than any voting booth. In fact the new self-service checkout lines 
> at the grocery store produce receipts that are already pre-cut and ready 
> for you to grab. So industry can obviously design a recipt printing 
> machine that is self-service and user-friendly.
>
> Don't let anyone tell you that it is too costly, complicated or difficult 
> to print out voting receipts. The printer technology is used in every 
> store in the developed world. As far as the 37 page [sic] nonsense. They 
> don't need to print the entire voter's guide on the reciept, or even the 
> entire ballot with all the candidates that you DIDN'T vote for. All that 
> is necessary is a short abbreviation of the ballot line (Pres, Sen, Bal. 
> Meas. 15, etc) and your actual vote (candidates name or yes/no in the case 
> of ballot measures). That information can easily be fit onto a cash 
> register recipt.

Makes sense. If every supermarket and discount store in the US can do it, 
so can Diebold and the FEC . . .


Barry L. Ritholtz
Market Strategist
Maxim Group
britholtz () maximgrp com
(212) 895-3614
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Big Picture:  A blog of capital markets, geopolitics, with a dash of film!
<http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/>http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/ 

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