THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Delivered-To: dfarber+ () ux13 sp cs cmu edu
Date: Sat, 08 May 2004 14:57:43 -0700
From: Jim Warren <jwarren () well com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Fwd: THROW YOUR VOTE AWAY, REDUX.
X-Sender: jwarren () mail well com
To: dave () farber net
At 4:50 PM -0400 5/8/04, Dave Farber wrote:
> 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.

I don't know how it is in other states, but in California, it is flat-out 
ILLEGAL for ANY evidence to be provided to a voter, of how they 
voted.  Among other things, it would offer voters the opportunity to sell 
their vote -- by delivering proof-of-choices to a buyer.

The ONLY approach I've heard of -- to "voter-verified paper ballots" 
(produced by a touchscreen or other computerized voting machine) -- is:

1.  The voter makes their choices via the touchscreen or whatever.

2.  Once completed, the voter presses the button indicating they are finished.

3.  Thereupon, the machine prints the verification paper for the voter's 
review and approval.

4.  If approved, then -- in order for its votes to be counted -- the paper 
is either retained by the voting machine, when it records the vote, or else 
the voter must drop it into a ballot box just as they had to do "in the old 
days".

(E.g., the machine might print the voter's selections in machine-readable 
form as well as human-readable form -- and the ballots from the drop-boxes 
would then be scanned by an optical reader ... but be in a far more 
reliable form for optical scanning than penciled-in selection lines or 
hanging-chad punch-ballots).

There's at least one machine design that drops the paper ballot down into a 
clear plastic window, for the voter's review before final voting.  The 
voter then either presses an "accept" button, which drops the approved 
ballot into one box while recording the vote electronically ... or presses 
the "reject" button, which drops the errant ballot into a different box 
while returning the voter to the touchscreen so the voter can modify 
his/her selections.  (This is the analog of them spoiling one paper ballot, 
and turning it in so they can get a replacement.)  And no matter what, 
EVERY blank paper ballot used for this purpose is serial-numbered and must 
be accounted-for, in the audit procedures that follow any election.]

However, in NONE of these cases, is the voter EVER allowed to retain any 
PROOF of HOW they voted.  At most, they are given only proof that they DID 
vote.

--jim

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