[SGVLUG] Vote stealing

[Emerson, Tom]

> -----Original Message----- Of Don Gibbs
> >  > -----Original Message-----
> >>  [mailto:sgvlug-bounces at sgvlug.net] On Behalf Of Zack, James
> >>
> >>  I am all for technology, but it needs to be done right.  
> So  if you 
> >> were going to build the perfect, fairest, most secure  voting 
> >> machine, what would you include?
> >>
> >>  My list includes paper receipts for each voter to 
> visually  confirm 
> >> on paper their votes cast

[and somewhere in there I wrote...]

> >While this sounds nice, does it actually do any good?
> >
> >   -- more than likely, the "paper receipt" will be 
> thermally printed, 
> >which will degrade in ordinary sunlight, placed in a wallet (body 
> >heat), or just "time"; by the time a recount arrives, you're 
> "ballot" 
> >will be as unreadable as a butterfly-ballot from Florida...
> >
> 
> Of course, no one would ever be allowed to walk away from a voting 
> station with real proof of how her/his vote went.  If this were 
> allowed, a voter could prove to someone else how they voted, and this 
> would allow them to sell a vote or, worse yet, to be forced to vote a 
> certain way under threat of retaliation.  So anonymous physical 
> records of individual votes must be kept exclusively by the poll 
> workers to run an audit.

Doh!  Wasn't thinking along those lines, but you're right -- yes, it
would have to be printed and presented to the voter for verification,
then sealed as backup to the electronic count.  There would be some
"operational" problems associated with this (as someone else pointed
out, they may not be able to read the printout for a variety of reasons,
might not understand what is presented on the verification printout, or
simply press the wrong key to accept/reject the verification.) but it
would be far harder to rig the count.

Of course, should a machine be compromised, noone would know UNLESS a
recount was requested/required, and then it could still come in within
the "margin for error", and if it does, which way do you think people
will believe? The machine or fallable humans counting by hand?
(presuming, of course, it was close enough to begin with that the result
changes depending on which source you believe)

Personally, I'd say that any "recount" situation would invalidate the
entire set of results for a given location -- the mechanics of counting
by hand almost completely guarantees the totals won't match, and in that
case, you cannot believe EITHER source as "accurate"  (kind of like
carrying [or relying on] an odd number of clocks on a boat...)

You see, I'd consider it "odd" if a recount matched the machine count
exactly for anything over a few hundred votes. ;)  [of course, depending
on the readability and irrefutability of the "printed" version of the
votes cast, not to mention that one ballot might stick to another and
not get counted, or get dropped on the floor and re-counted, etc.]