E Voting verification idea

[SHRED]

Short of hand counted paper ballots my buddy came up with what I think is a brilliant idea to close the verification loop which if broken now and wide open via the privatized voting machines.

It goes like this...after you vote and while still in the booth a receipt of how you voted is printed out. On that receipt is a password code. This code or password could then be used on a State run site. This site would contain the info of how the voting machine corporations recorded and reported your voted to the State. You could log on and check the accuracy of your vote with unique password.

This would allow both the voter and the State to check the vote apart from the privatized machines.

[ret5hd]

1. Anything that lets someone check how their vote was recorded AFTER they leave the voting place...

will lead to vote buying. There is really only one answer: paper ballots marked by hand and counted by hand with observers.

[SHRED]

3. Please explain...

...how a vote would be bought in the scenario I presented.

[ret5hd]

5. You can't figure it out?

Vote buyer: vote for xxx and i'll give you $50.
Vote seller: OK (goes and votes, returns with receipt)
Vote buyer: Let me see that (dials phone, punches in code) OK, here's your $50.

[dawg]

2. Just have people deposit the receipts in a lock box as they leave the polling station.

Then there will be a paper trail that can be audited. A voter can never be sure how the machine registered his vote, but he can be sure of what printed out on the receipt.

ATM's give you a receipt. Gas pumps give you a receipt. Heck, even McDonald's gives you a receipt. Why not a voting machine?

[SHRED]

6. I say do both...my scenario and yours

Of course hand counted paper ballots should be the law.

[al bupp]

7. A receipt would theoretically violate the anonymity of voting

Any paper receipt which connects a specific voter (by name or ID) w/ a specific vote would mean that that vote is no longer anonymous. I think this is a big reason why electronic voting machines are fundamentally a bad idea.

[dawg]

9. It wouldn't id the voter, just the vote data.

The voter would be able to see how his vote printed out, and the receipt would serve as a paper trail separate from the data contained on the hard drive.

[IphengeniaBlumgarten]

4. Idealistic and trusting

What a nice person you must be, to think that more than an handful of people would save their receipts and bother to check that their votes were correctly recorded... and even then how do they know that their vote is correctly reflected in the totals? Once you have an electronic representation, all kinds of games you can play: display it one way to the user, count it another in the total. (Of course someone that could audit the program could spot the fraud, but the programs are treated as trade secrets, average voter can not check this.)

Love computers, HATE electronic voting. Need a paper trail that is held by the registrar and that can be hand counted if need be. Optical scanning of paper forms is probably acceptable.

[marions ghost]

8. Right--

how would you know that your vote didn't "disappear" while showing you a nice reassuring record of your receipt on a screen?

And even more perfect way to hide what really gets counted.

[SheilaT]

10. And it could easily lead to companies

REALLY requiring their employees vote the way they say.

Here's the company meeting on Monday. "Tomorrow is election day. We've already stressed the importance of electing a President Romney. So on Wednesday, when you come to work, please bring in your voting receipt. Thank you."

I agree that at least for the Presidential race, we should have paper ballots, hand counted.

The other very essential problem with our current voting system is that we are electing too many offices on that November day. It should be limited to President, Senator if applicable, and representatives. Okay, maybe we can include the local offices, but definitely no ballot initiatives. But then, the problem that this limitation presents, is that all those other things will require a separate election, which costs money and for which many people don't turn out.