Scrap the "secret" ballot... (Is this a good idea?)

[Wilms]

What does the DU-ER Brain Trust think of this?



Scrap the "secret" ballot - return to open voting

by Lynn Landes

November 5, 2005

snip

Secret ballots are anonymous ballots. They can be easily replaced, altered or destroyed, particularly if voting machines are used. Even if voters 'verify' their ballots and even if audits are performed, widespread vote tampering can still occur with relative ease and little risk of discovery because there still remains no effective method to 'certify' the authenticity of ballots, no way to identify an individual ballot and link it to an individual voter.

With few exceptions, election officials around the world are certifying election results based on anonymous and untraceable ballots. And contrary to a growing legion of election statisticians, exit polls are not an adequate check on election results. It's ridiculous when you think about it, using anonymous exit polls to verify anonymous ballot results.

The entire voting process should be 100% transparent. To that end, I am proposing a protocol for Open Voting with Total Transparency (OVTT):

"Voting shall take place only on Election Day. All ballots and counting shall comply with the following criteria: paper-only, voter-certified, duplicate-provided, and hand-counted. Certification shall require voters to include their name, address, and signature on the ballots. Election officials shall provide the voter with a copy of the voter's ballot. After the election, all ballots shall be available for public inspection at the Board of Elections office. Not permitted are the following: absentee or early voting, Internet voting, voting machines or optical scanners, and secret ballots."

snip

In fact, three voting practices were introduced during the post-Civil War era that severely limited, if not destroyed, meaningful public oversight of the voting process: 1) absentee voting, 2) the use of voting machines, and 3) the secret ballot. Absentee voting has always been problematic, which is why many states and nations restrict its use. Voting machines are under increasing scrutiny due to their inherent non-transparency, which is why most countries have chosen not to use them. Amazingly however, the secret ballot has dodged public scrutiny, so far.

snip/read it/and comment

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2005/1546

[Land Shark]

1. A CRITICALLY IMPORTANT POINT to understand:

The Secret Ballot (while I'm NOT against it) GUARANTEES A RADICALLY NON-AUDITABLE SYSTEM OF ELECTIONS.

Why?

Because ballot secrecy REQUIRES that ballots can not be connected back to particular voters, because then you'd know who voted how. But if you can't connect back to SOURCE DOCUMENTS (in this case, people) you can not have a completely AUDITABLE SYSTEM.

With ballot secrecy, we are truly at the mercy of the quality of our checks and balances and the quality of our chain of custody.

With ballot secrecy, analogies to ATMs are at best shaky and at worst totally inapplicable because ATMs are all about account numbers and the ability to track back in a totally non-secret way (your financial info is secret only from OTHER CUSTOMERS or the public but not from your financial information; with the bank's employees your financial information is BY NO MEANS secret, and they've probably sent you a privacy notice in the mail recently that is more accurately described as a privacy WAIVER notice allowing them to sell your info to third parties unless you object)

Ballot secrecy makes elections unique and in a class of their own.

The original reason for ballot secrecy is to prevent voter intimidation and retalation, which was a regular part of american electoral tradition, and sometimes still is. It is still popular for that reason.

But we need to be real clear that the secrecy of the ballot exacts a great cost in terms of election vulnerability.

Think of it this way: in the old fashioned town hall, we could have a fair election by raising hands, moving to opposite sides of the hall, all of us could count. The only risks are intimidation, bribery and inability to make the meeting, but those risks create evidence and witnesses....

Now, how do we add BALLOT SECRECY to the town hall meeting so we don't know how our neighbors voted??? WE DO THIS BY PUTTING BLINDFOLDS ON ALL THE VOTERS, AND THEN RAISING OUR HANDS AND HAVING THE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS COUNT PERHAPS WITH A FEW VOLUNTEERS HELPING.

Do you see the problems created by ballot secrecy????

[On the Road]

2. A Secret Ballot Should not Mean an Anonymous Ballot

Your medical history is confidential, but that doesn't mean your health records are anonymous. That would be silly. It just mean access is restricted and you control who sees your records.

I've come to the belief that having a voting method which makes it impossible to determine what vote was recorded for a specific individual is a huge obstacle to combating election fraud.

I actually believe electronic voting COULD be used to create a more reliable voting system as long as individual votes could be tracked back to individuals. If you voted in a close election, you could receive a sealed enveloped which showed how the voting system recorded your votes. Any deviations would become clear.

It's bound to be messy. People may make mistakes, change their minds, lie, or forget who they voted for. But any systematic attempt to sway the vote would stand out like a sore thumb.

Secret ballots are NOT a foundation of American elections. When George Washington was elected, you voted in some precincts by walking into town hall and stating in front of a roomful of people who you cast your vote for. Secrecy is good to the extent that it does not compromise the system, but it should not destroy confidence in the results or open the door to stealing elections.

[Land Shark]

3. There's a very difficult balancing between voter intimidation and ballot

secrecy.

I personally don't want elections officials to know my votes, although of the choices actually available to me these days, none are really controversial enough to merit secrecy. But the next election they might be....

In any case, having a trackable system where election officials could know my votes if they chose to (like a bank employee can know my balance) isn't the most attractive either, because when it comes time to vote out an abusive leader or government, I would have to be afraid, very afraid, of my vote being known. THis is in itself a form of intimidation.

[On the Road]

7. One Way is to Make it a Two-Part Identification

A ballot would be tied to a voter ID number rather than a name. The person's identity would be stored on another file, and accessed by a only during a recount or audit by an outside party.

I agree it's an issue -- it's a question of whether it outweighs the gain in accuracy and confidence. Many voters don't want their choice to be public, but personally I don't think intimidation is that common.

[Land Shark]

8. I agree intimidation is not that common because opportunity disappeared

for it with secret ballots. The pressure moves around to exploit the vulnerabilities of the system.....

[eomer]

9. There's been some work along those lines.

I remember reading about an encrypted receipt system. I don't know whether this is the one I saw before and I just now only looked at it quickly, but for what it's worth:

<snip>

Chaum's insight was to invoke the logic of cryptography to prove that votes can't be changed after the voter leaves the polling booth. For each voter, his machine prints bar code-like dots on two strips of paper that, when combined under the carefully angled lens of a custom viewfinder, reveal the name of the candidate in plain English. The voter can keep only one encrypted strip as a receipt for use in post-election auditing -- but without its mate, an individual strip will not reveal which candidate was chosen.

For cryptographers, the inherent beauty of such a system is that it safeguards privacy and security -- and doesn't require voters to trust the government or untested software on a voting machine. "The next real issue is, 'When can I buy it?'" says Chaum, who created a company called Votegrity to develop and sell the hardware. "That's why we have to aggressively push forward with the company at this stage to make it an option." He is looking for investors and a chief executive to bring his system to market.

<snip>

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print/?TYPE=story&AT=39157116-39020439t-20000022c

[Land Shark]

4. Note how "reforms" of elections are the seeds of the next big problem

First activists asked for paper "trails", then learned and started asking for paper "ballots" or paper "ballots of record" and such.

We should learn NOT that all reforms are stupid, but rather that the incentive and motivation to game the system is intense and permanent. Thus, elections systems should be designed to offer security but also the lowest payoff per election crime. In this regard, paper ballot systems are superior because the typical crimes have low payoffs of a single vote.

[sirjohn]

5. The right would never agree

The writer apparently feels that IN HIS DISTRICT he is in accord with the magority, as for public opinion. But what about those of us who live in Red states?

Or - if you wish to try a thought experiment - put the shoe on the other foot for a minute. Let's say the Right had proposed the measure for all the additional paperwork. Would they not be charged with voter intimidation? So they would be very gun-shy about even discussing the measure.

[beingthere]

6. No.

[Bill Bored]

10. A system can probably be devised in which ballot secrecy is only

compromised when the voter believes his/her vote was not counted as cast and challenges it.

BTW, in the Iowa primaries, they don't vote secretly. It might be instructive to see how that works. We've gotten some BIG losers out of that process lately, haven't we? I don't know if it's because of the lack of secrecy, but it could be! Peer pressure is a powerful thing.

And besides, there's vote selling, harassment, etc. once you can prove to third parties how you voted.

So any system must allow the voter to see that his vote was counted as cast, but not allow the voter to reveal his/her choices to anyone else except in the event of a discrepancy and then only to elections officials in order to challenge it. I think that could work.

Two separate public and private databases of some kind would be the nuts and bolts if anyone's interested.

[ISUGRADIA]

14. A minor correction: Iowa has a caucus and not a primary

and candidates who do not get 15% at a caucus site don't even get the vote reported. Just being nit-picky and I do agree with your general points, the peer pressure one especially.

[Bill Bored]

23. Thanks. They sure must have a high "undervote" rate in those caucuses! nt

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. many ballots aren't secret now, at least in NC

Many folks don't realize it, but if you vote early or by mail,
your ballot is not completely secret.

Further, officials can guess that you probably are going to vote for
the persons in your registered party.

You have to tell them what party you are in to be signed into the poll book.

So, it is not a big leap - registered democrat, likely to vote for democrats.

[ISUGRADIA]

13. How are they not secret?

Is there no secrecy envelope included with the ballot? If so and somebody is looking at your ballot that is against the law almost certainly. In two states I have worked election and with absentee ballots all ballots are shuffled in the secrecy envelopes after being removed so no one can track a ballot to a person.

And more than a few states have no registration by party (I am in one MN).

[Wilms]

15. I think some states are requiring a copy of your ID for absentee voting.

[ISUGRADIA]

16. is that written on the ballot itself? the ballot itself, how one voted

should not be linkable to a person (in theory)

[Wilms]

17. Don't know but don't think so.

Sounds more like a xerox (I'm gettin' old) copy is supposed to be in the envelope.

[ISUGRADIA]

18. That may be used for some HAVA requirement (I am not sure)

but it should not compromise the secrecy of the ballot. Maybe a story will help.

I've worked in election offices and at the polls on and off over the years. Absentee balloting is huge in Iowa (35% or so of all ballots cast). Many times someone would call and ask how could his ballot be secret when he had to sign the absentee ballot envelope and put down his home address.

I explained that the ballot was supposed to go inside a secrecy folder before placed in the absentee envelope. Then when the absentee board opened these envelopes and took out the ballots they were covered. All the ballots are placed in a pile and shuffled before they are taken out and run through a tabulator. So the ballot should not be seen until that time and there is no way to track a ballot to an individual voter (if the law is followed).

I would think, and hope, other states have similar procedures.

[Wilms]

19. I'm trying to find a link and not having luck.

But I recall it as an "ID" issue. Not HAVA.

[ISUGRADIA]

20. Thinking about it, that does sound more like a state ID issue and not HAVA

[Wilms]

21. I may have misinterpreted.

As I'm searching, I'm finding requirements for the 'Ballot Envelope' to be signed (as you've referred), not the actual ballot.

Sorry for the fire drill. :blush:

[ISUGRADIA]

22. Not a problem, 50 states, 50 sets of laws and some could have

a provision like that, that I am not aware of.

[Bill Bored]

24. Thanks for bringing this up.

Advocates of Early Voting don't want to hear it though. To them, "convenience" is all that seems to matter.

After all, we have junk food and junk science -- why not junk voting?

And Bush's share of the vote is automatically super-sized!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

12. Lynn Landes has been studying elections a long time

She has no agenda.

She has studied the history of elections.

I think this is worth thinking about, although
I would prefer that we just plain flat out use hand counted paper ballots, get the da*# things counted within 24 hours, and get it overwith.

No modems, no electrical outless, no batteries, no 50 pages of instructions, no technicians, no digital ballots, no programming,
no HAVA money buying machines, no electronic poll books -

NO DIEBOLD, ES&S, SEQUOIA, HART INTERCIVIC, NO VOTING MACHINES.