The Never-Asked Question....

[catnhatnh]

...is how do you verify a secret ballot....Short of a case by case recount from a poll book, NO ballot in any recount can truly be verified.And oddly this thought has only just now occurred to me!A recount of just totals and a stack of anonomous ballots are considered "VALID" as long as they agree...How many in our varied electoral processes would have access to both totals and an area where extra ballots could be tossed on the stack? I bet it's a considerable number....Just asking...

[mattclearing]

1. I was thinking about this the other day.

The only way to have a believable electronic voting system is if everyone could see their vote counted on a website next to their name.

Of course, this would out a lot of people who might not want their votes made public.

It would be transparent, but would also result in retaliation against people.

But it would be foolproof. It would be nearly impossible to fix, unless fake people were put on it.

[trudyco]

7. No, you could have a receipt with a number

THe number matches the number on your ballot. You then look up your vote on the web by the ballot number. If you wish to contest the official vote on the web, you must come in and show your number and verify you are you and you voted. Then you get it changed.

If you vote in person via early election, election day, or provisional ballot you may pick any ballot within the pile (sort of giving a random number). If you vote absentee you have the choice of coming in to get your ballot and picking from a pile at the election office, otherwise you get what you get and it might not be that private.

Any election official attempting to write your ballot number next to your name would be committing a felony (make a law).

Not as private as today but better way for the voter to make sure their vote counted.

[catnhatnh]

8. Yep BUT....

again in todays atmosphere how do I make sure my precinct hasn't been stuffed?

[trudyco]

12. all votes, by number, would be on the web with tally

I think you also have to have hand counts (or maybe optiscan but I'd feel safer with hand counts) immediately after the polls close and representatives from each party on the ballot may be present (the party's national office chooses them)during precinct tabulation. Tallies are posted on the door and a signed paper that goes with the votes.

County tabulations would be open to the public through a glass wall.

I also think registrations lists and who voted should be listed online by precinct.

Anyways, I haven't given up on this election yet. But by late January the democrats should have a template for each state dem party to push an identical law through at the state level while the national dems should work on an amendment for a citizens right to vote and national standards.

I think Bush has a list of things he throws out to keep the attention off this election and the democrats are blowing it. They are falling for it hook, line and sinker.

They should be doing everything to get MSM attention. Make speeches like JJ. Have a prominent Democrat in every state to hold rallies (Gore, Clinton, Carter, Albright, Reno, Senators, congresspeople, movie stars, music stars, everybody). Have handouts about the blackbox problems and fraud problems past and present and send a dozen to every democrat on their mailing list. Set up virtual caucuses (web streaming and teleconferences as well as a physical place) for local democrats so they can meet with their representatives and state heads every month (week? Day?) to strategize. Even if they lose they'd learn how to use technology to become the party of the populous again. What an opportunity lost.

Alas, Barney Franks thinks there is nothing he can do. Sigh.
Maybe in February I'll be asking blue states the join with the blue part of Colorado and NM, Nev to become the United Atonomous States of Canada.

trudyco

[illflem]

2. Many times the punch card or optical scan type

ballots have a number that corresponds to a number on the register's list. The register's list has a copy of your signature from when you registered right next to where you sign before they give you a ballot.

Only in an almost perfect system

[notadmblnd]

6. You're right, my ballot had a number. It was number four.

and I do believe the number was written next to my name in the rolls before it was handed to me.

[McKenzie]

3. it's not who votes that counts

it's who counts the votes.

Joseph Stalin

[skids]

4. The logical progression....

...of early voting is a system whereby a person keeps their vote on file. They can go change their vote whenever they want to, but whatever is on file, as long as they don't die beforehand, is what is cast on election day.

This may sound like it is impossible without linking votes directly to people, but cryptographers have developed more clever system than what would be required here.

And although personally I think paper ballots are much safer than any of the advanced technologies currently in use, it isn't that it is impossible to build a secure, private, voting system with modern technology, just that such a system has not been built yet (they never really did try.)

Anyway we obviously have a *long* way to go before any of that matters.

As to the original question, there are systems that will allow secret ballots to be verified, and for voters to check that their vote was counted without having to carry a receipt which exposes how they voted. Some extremely clever people have looked at this problem.

[catnhatnh]

5. I think I've been unclear....

....finding my vote proprly cast and tabulated is one thing,but in our current climate how is a voter to be convinced his group,precinct,polling place has not been corrupted by "voter inflation" even if I am assured MY vote is correctly tallied how can I be sure that fake votes haven't corrupted the pool???

[suston96]

9. Not such a hard task

Elsewhere here there is a thread about that Republican conservative hacker who is a licensed or degreed Computer System Auditor. http://www.chuckherrin.com/main.htm

Among other things he says that the simplest system is the easiest one to audit. The more complicated the system, the EASIER it is to hack.

Also elsewhere someone posted about Canadian elections - you know, Canadians, our former friends up north.

They have only paper ballots which are counted by hand.

In an election up there with about 23 million citizens the entire counting of the ballots took place in four hours. Do the math.

Just think: paper ballots, marked and counted by hand with no machines in between.

But like a poster here just told us Joseph Stalin has said: it's not the voters, it's the counters. So we have to watch the counters.

Edited to be topical: ballots are, as some have suggested, numbered and assigned to voters only by numbers. No names.

[illflem]

10. The voter's

signature or proof of ID should be next to his name on the register's poll list. If they want to check that you registered, say for instance under several different names, they would have to go out and personally check, much the same way the provisional ballots are counted, tedious and time consuming.

About the only way around this would be to have a bar code tattooed to your arm.

[catnhatnh]

11. Which would indeed be proof....

....however here in NH the actual procedure is to ask your name and then to cross it out and allow you to vote...so I have signed NOTHING neither have I any other proof other than other voters observed from a distance APPEAR to have their names crossed out also.....