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I am not advocating for paperless, what I want to see is a combination of the two. Paper for auditing, Digital for backups and replication with on-site initial

I am not advocating for paperless, what I want to see is a combination of the two. Paper for auditing, Digital for backups and replication with on-site initial counting which should be validated as the ballots make it back to main election offices. This would mean there is a digital record on receipt of the ballot and the ballot itself. This seemingly would reduce the potential for fraud in both systems.

pedrocr 9y ago
Implement that system and an attacker will then proceed to destroy your democracy by hacking the digital part, making the counts not match and causing complete distrust in the voting system. Properly implemented paper elections have no significant fraud possibilities and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost. There is no problem to solve here and technology only makes things worse.
- peterwwillis 9y ago
  > Properly implemented Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. > have no significant fraud possibilities We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. > and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)
  - pedrocr 9y ago
    >Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. Right, so the evidence that the US sucks at implementing paper elections should be used to advocate the implementation of an incredibly more complex system that somehow will implement itself? >We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. Most of the world runs these kinds of elections regularly without issue and electronic means only makes this worse. You not only don't make the count any more accurate you also add complexity and enable a bunch of denial of service opportunities. >This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious) All of that is true in the US yes, but again that's because the process is poor enough. Other places have extremely close elections that don't require this. You have such poor confidence in your election process you sometimes have legally mandated recounts on a low enough margin.
    - peterwwillis 9y ago
      Yes, we suck at elections. That's why the article we are talking about is about making our elections suck less. Using both electronic and paper means we get the benefits of both, and each side's downsides are managed by the other mechanism. According to every expert on the subject it's the most effective means we have right now. If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant.
      - pedrocr 9y ago
        >According to every expert on the subject it's the most effective means we have right now. Citation is needed for this. I know of no expert that recommends this and no argument for this. I've already pointed out how an electronic+paper system would be extremely vulnerable to attack. All you need is for the count to be different between the two for no one to trust your election. >If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant. There's nothing about the way elections are properly run everywhere else that wouldn't work in the US. Implement enough voting booths properly staffed and you'll have no issues. If you can't do that you also can't implement any complex electronic system so this discussion is pointless.
specialist 9y ago
Tabulating ballots as they are received (at central count) is a terrible idea. The gold standard is precinct-based tabulation of paper ballots, counted the moment the polls close.
- bluejekyll 9y ago
  That's exactly what I said, the tabulation at at central office would be to verify precinct counts. I'm not sure I see an issue with multiple counts, if they don't come out the same then the system should be reviewed for issues.
  - jeltz 9y ago
    Sweden does two manual counts, one at the precinct and one by central election authority. The second count is the real one, but if there are too large discrepancies they would be investigate.

pedrocr 9y ago

Implement that system and an attacker will then proceed to destroy your democracy by hacking the digital part, making the counts not match and causing complete distrust in the voting system. Properly implemented paper elections have no significant fraud possibilities and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost. There is no problem to solve here and technology only makes things worse.

peterwwillis 9y ago
> Properly implemented Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. > have no significant fraud possibilities We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. > and convince whoever lost the election that he indeed lost This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious)
- pedrocr 9y ago
  >Again, 5,000 independent districts, and every single district manages itself independently. There is no way whatsoever to ensure proper implementation. Right, so the evidence that the US sucks at implementing paper elections should be used to advocate the implementation of an incredibly more complex system that somehow will implement itself? >We have a ton of provisions implemented to curtail significant attempts at fraud of paper ballots. And in paper ballot and absentee voting, there are large numbers of problems virtually every election cycle in various jurisdictions. Most of the world runs these kinds of elections regularly without issue and electronic means only makes this worse. You not only don't make the count any more accurate you also add complexity and enable a bunch of denial of service opportunities. >This isn't even close to accurate. If there is a wide margin in a result, it isn't officially contested, even when we have evidence of corruption. When the margin is small, and a recount could possibly swing the vote, then the electee becomes unconvinced and demands a recount. (Or when the election result is simply too extreme, and the necessity of a recount is obvious) All of that is true in the US yes, but again that's because the process is poor enough. Other places have extremely close elections that don't require this. You have such poor confidence in your election process you sometimes have legally mandated recounts on a low enough margin.
  - peterwwillis 9y ago
    Yes, we suck at elections. That's why the article we are talking about is about making our elections suck less. Using both electronic and paper means we get the benefits of both, and each side's downsides are managed by the other mechanism. According to every expert on the subject it's the most effective means we have right now. If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant.
    - pedrocr 9y ago
      >According to every expert on the subject it's the most effective means we have right now. Citation is needed for this. I know of no expert that recommends this and no argument for this. I've already pointed out how an electronic+paper system would be extremely vulnerable to attack. All you need is for the count to be different between the two for no one to trust your election. >If you would like to compare countries and voting systems, I welcome that discussion, but unless it works specifically for the US, it's not relevant. There's nothing about the way elections are properly run everywhere else that wouldn't work in the US. Implement enough voting booths properly staffed and you'll have no issues. If you can't do that you also can't implement any complex electronic system so this discussion is pointless.

specialist 9y ago

Tabulating ballots as they are received (at central count) is a terrible idea. The gold standard is precinct-based tabulation of paper ballots, counted the moment the polls close.

bluejekyll 9y ago
That's exactly what I said, the tabulation at at central office would be to verify precinct counts. I'm not sure I see an issue with multiple counts, if they don't come out the same then the system should be reviewed for issues.
- jeltz 9y ago
  Sweden does two manual counts, one at the precinct and one by central election authority. The second count is the real one, but if there are too large discrepancies they would be investigate.