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The article mentions optical-scan machines, i.e. machines that tally paper ballots.

• zellyn 9y ago
  Ah, didn't catch that. Thanks!
• crankylinuxuser 9y ago
  Those have always bugged me. Ok, so I fill out this scantron sheet, but how do I know that the computer interpreted the results I filled out? How do I know that some goof on the paper invalidated a vote? I'd like some sort of verification and 2 clicky buttons with VOTE/NO VOTE test upon seeing the scanned results. I guess I expect too much here...
  • westbywest 9y ago
    Nothing is going to measure pencil marks perfectly, but scantron technology is decades old. Sloppy pencil usage wouldn't inhibit manual inspection of paper ballots, e.g. during a recount, but one does have to define some expected threshold of competency for voters using the ballots.
  • ShorsHammer 9y ago
    While probably scary and a non-starter for some have often wanted a key stretched hash of a voters id number/vote/salt as a public record (possibly also stamped into a blockchain) and able to be checked by the voter holding the salt and no one else. Once you put a ballot paper in a box you have no idea whether it was properly counted or lost. There's the inevitable issue of cryprographic advances and forward secrecy, which wouldn't sit well with some people for fair reason, anonymous voting is a cornerstone of democracy. Personally wouldnt mind my vote being public a few decades after the fact but not before then. Electronic voting has a bad reputation here but there's certainly room for improvement on paper only.