How would having paper receipts w/voting machines help?

[Bleacher Creature]

I'm serious when I say that I have no idea. Without asking people to send their receipts in during a contested election or recount, what would it matter?

[linazelle]

1. A paper receipt means nothing. What is needed is a paper trail.

A paper trail means that auditable vote records would be documented and available for verification. With computerized voting, no such documentation exists at this point. There's no way to tell without an auditable trail if your vote gets counted.

[In Truth We Trust]

9. Paper Ballots NOW! Hand Counts NOW!! IMPEACHMENT NOW!!!

[Salviati]

2. what people are really asking for...

is for the computer to print out a paper ballot, which would then be the official ballot, which either would be counted in the first place, or certainly used for recounts. A paper "receipt" like you described, would as you surmised, be useless...

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

4. What this poster said!

[IndyOp]

3. People have to either drop their ballot into a box before

leaving the booth or they get one to take home and one automatically drops into a ballot box that stays at the precinct.

Voter-verified paper ballot --> I check to make sure the candidates I wanted to vote for printed out on the ballot.

Ballot stays at precinct.

Randomly selected precincts (10% of each county) are recounted - we count voter verified paper ballots and compare them to numbers on machines. If the machine gives a perfect match for the 10% we counted by hand, then we accept that machine's numbers.

[napi21]

7. I doubt you could do a selective 10%.

You would have to have some ID on the paper to identify the machine count of the same votes. Those who bitch about "secret ballots" would go ballistic!!!!

O personally don't have a problem with anyone knowing who I voted for, but we do have a secret ballot in the US, and we hae to respect that.

[IndyOp]

11. The ballots can still be secret - I don't have to show anyone what

is on my ballot when I drop it in the box. Imagine voting on paper ballots with a felt-tip pen - I check the boxes next to candidates I want and then drop it in the box. Everybody drops their ballot in the same box and nobody knows whose ballot is whose. It is secret ballot. The only diff between electronic system and pen on ballot - is that the electronic system would count my vote and save it to memory and print out a ballot I could double-check. If the print out is right, I drop it in the box and boogie on out of there.

Why couldn't we do 10% of the precincts in each county - randomly selected? San Francisco counts *100%* of their ballots by hand. Random selection of precincts in each county is easy - slips of paper in a box easy.

:shrug:

[napi21]

14. Think about what you just said.

Of course you can hand audit 10%, or any other % you want, but how are your going to do that? You can't just pick 10% of the papers out of the box and select 10% of the electronic votes because you can't tell if you are comparing the same votes.

I am retired now, but I was an accountant for 40 years. You have to match the paper ballot to the same electronic vote or you loose any validation.

The only way I could see random selection indicating anything is if you tabulated every paper vote and then compared the results to the electronic vote.

[IndyOp]

12. Not count 10% of each precinct - count 10% of all the precints in

each county. If in one county there are 50 precincts - then randomly select and count all of the ballots in 5 precincts. Check to see that count of paper ballots exactly matches the count on the machines in those precincts. If in one county there are 100 precincts - then randomly select and count all of the ballots in 10 precincts...

Ballots secret, I promise.

[napi21]

15. That process would work, except, if you found a material difference,

what is the solution? Does there have to be a law passed that the hand counted paper ballot would over-ride the electronic one?

That may sound stupid to you, but remember Florida in 2000.

[IndyOp]

21. Yes, exactly - paper count overrides the electronic, it is

the permanent record of any election because each voter checked their nicely printed ballot to see that it matched their intention. We cannot check the computer memory to see that it matches our intention.

Sorry for feeding this to you piecemeal - it is the standard "how to protect our vote" idea - visit the election reform forum here at DU for tons and tons of information.

:hi:

[Wilms]

8. No. No. No. And Yes. Yes. Yes.

Giving the voter "one to take home" opens the process up to bought/coerced votes.

All else seems right. ;)

[Cleita]

5. It isn't a paper receipt that you want.

You want a source document that records your intent. If you punch your votes in and you agree to it, then you get a paper document back that says the same thing. Then you put that into the pile of source documents. You don't keep it. You may get a duplicate back as a receipt that you keep, but there is nothing official about this.

The source document should be counted by hand and compared to the totals from the computer database. Here is where the thieving right complain loudly about the process. It's too hard to cheat that way.

[SharonAnn]

6. We don't need recipts. We need Voter Verified Paper Ballots that

are kept at the voting location in a Ballot Box and can be recounted.

We also need Robust Auditing Procedures to tally the ballots in some precincts and compare them to the machine count. Any differences should then trigger a complete recount for that election.

Receipts have no legal standing. Paper that the voter takes with them are useless. The ballots have to printed, verified by the voter, and retained at the poll location.

A device that prints out your choices on a paper BALLOT, visible under a plastic cover, could be part of an electronic setup. The voter verifies that what is printed is what they wanted, they press a YES button, then the ballot is fed into the ballot box. If the voter denies that the ballot representst what they wanted, they press a NO button and the device feeds the paper ballot into a rejected ballot box.

There are several ways to solve the issue. The key is that the voter has to be able to verify a tangible ballot and there has to be a way to audit the process. Obviously, laws have to exist to define the auditing and recount procedures that allow actual auditing and recounting. Not Katherine Harris type recounting.

[sam sarrha]

10. which of the 3 tally sheets will be printed, 3% win for the Reich wing..??

there are 2 extra tally sheets hidden in the Diebold system.. how do you know which prints.. the default republican settings or the actual votes.. they are illegal cause the vote count cant be 'observed'

[IndyOp]

13. don't print 'tally sheets' - print voter verified paper ballots

each voter checks that the ballot printed matches what they wanted and then we count the paper ballots to make sure they match what the machine says for at least 10% of all precincts (randomly selected).

I have more posted on responses above in this thread. This *is* doable. We *must* do it.

[sam sarrha]

17. the tallies are only altered to create a 3% win.. the machines will print

out the totals from the 3rd tally list inside the machine...

3% is 30 pr/1000 votes and that will be spread out in a close election.. spot checking probably wont catch anything

[IndyOp]

22. the tallies can and have been adjusted to create > 3% wins -

and a 3% win could be 5% or 10% or more deviation from the actual votes cast and I said that we need a 10% recount. This is hardly a 'spot check' - this is a thorough recount. All hand counts and machine counts must match exactly or the entire race is counted by hand with the paper ballots being the final result.

Your post seems to conclude 'we can't do anything' which wrong and unhelpful -- do you want to recount 50%? how about 80%? 100? -- fine! I'll help.

San Francisco recounts 100% of their ballots for every election. Other countries release their 'expendable' government employees to count ballots after each election.

If we are going to continue to use machines *at all* they must provide voter verified paper ballots and we must count those ballots by hand (a large enough random sample that we are confident the machines counted votes exactly correctly).

:kick:

[BuyingThyme]

16. There would have to be two.

One you get to keep and compare with the one in the little window.

Or, we can say to hell with this electronic voting crap which has absolutely no place in voting.

[sam sarrha]

18. there are 3 internal tally sheets inside the Diebold, there are 2 extra

tallies.. maybe one is for the 'default' votes.. machines can be programed to default any unchecked area.. as when someone only votes for local issues and leaves the candidates blank, the machine will default the vote to the republican party. the 3rd tally column can be used for the final print out which will alter few as possible to ensure a total state vote count of about 3% win for the republicans so as to not raise suspicion of fraud.. a check can always be printed of the first tally, and the vote total off the 2nd+3rd.. it is a nifty design and explains the 3 tallies.

[helderheid]

19. Without audits, it would mean jack squat.

[tyedyeto]

20. If you are voting on a Diebold-style machine...

you vote, then a paper 'receipt' is kicked out of the machine, just like those you receive when you do an ATM transaction. You confirm that you voted the way the paper 'receipt' says and deposit that into a bin. Your vote is tallied via computer and your paper vote (receipt) is also deposited in case of recount. You do not take the 'receipt' with you, that is the back-up copy of your vote.