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Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversaria

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out my ballot ahead of time and hand-deliver it on election day. I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being considered a problem then I find it really hard to take seriously the claims of people saying it sets too high of a bar.

unethical_ban 8y ago
I respect the idea that paper is "unhackable" and that decentralized voting counts are less vulnerable to attack. I've been thinking alot about Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and how to do an instant runoff with paper ballots at scale, notably for something like President. I suppose it's unlikely to occur, but in the instance of a national popular vote for president that results in a runoff, it is worth the extra time to go back through and count. After all, TV entertainment aside, there is no need to have results in same-day.
- daphneokeefe 8y ago
  I am a pollworker in San Francisco, and I can tell you from personal experience with thousands of voters that Ranked-Choice Voting is widely misunderstood. The common refrain is: I only want to vote for this one candidate, and not for anyone else. In a hotly-contested election, they absolutely do not want to vote for the other guy as #2.
  - unethical_ban 8y ago
    An interesting take, thank you. I wonder which would be more complex to explain: That is is easier to just rank the candidates and each "non-primary" vote only counts in a runoff? Or Do "optional" voting, and explain that if their #1 candidate gets eliminated, their voice will no longer count?
  - ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
    How hard is it to explain to people that their vote only goes to #2 if #1 is already out of the running?
    - daphneokeefe 8y ago
      Well, you only get an opportunity to explain something when they ask.
    - baddox 8y ago
      It’s a challenge when people have only ever been exposed to first-past-the-post voting systems their entire life. And besides, it’s really not fair to assume that voting systems are simple to understand. Just have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...
      - unethical_ban 8y ago
        I don't know why you're downvoted, but as someone advocating for RCV, I think that the "instant runoff" method is about as easy as it can get, next to the FPTP we use today. I agree there are other methods that are better by the book than the IRV method, but are exercises in statistics and graph theory.
  - mikelward 8y ago
    Then make it optional preferential voting. You can number as many boxes as you want. It works that way in New South Wales. Apparently in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Malta, too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optional_preferential_voting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optional_preferential_voting
kimmeld 8y ago
Past history of voter ID is mostly intended to lower voter turnout especially among certain groups of people. Historically it's not really about detecting fraud. I find it hard to take people seriously who think it's really about fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_State...
adjkant 8y ago
> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being considered a problem then I find it really hard to take seriously the claims of people saying it sets too high of a bar. The problem is that the state and federal ID system is so fucked up that it disenfranchises voters. Until that system is fixed, you can't use it for voting. This issue then becomes a partisan one because voter fraud is so rare that it doesn't seem to need any additions, so strong pushes for voter ID laws (which almost never address the issue of the ID systems) are targeting those who are less likely to have ID, which tends to be concentrated with voting for one party. If anyone actually cared about voter ID laws for non-partisan reasons, it would go hand in hand with a national ID system.
- stouset 8y ago
  The same proponents of stronger voter ID laws are also the same people who are incomprehensibly paranoid about the notion of a national ID system.
  - Mountain_Skies 8y ago
    Is that really so weird? All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting? I'm in favor of requiring a photo id to vote but am well aware of the problems some have in obtaining such an id. That's the problem that needs to be corrected. It does need to be corrected first and we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders and go back to things the way they've been. Everyone should have easy access to a state endorsed identification card. It's an essential function of government and interaction with citizens. As such it should be funded by general taxation rather than a user fee. A state issued identification card is used for so much more than just authorization for driving a vehicle. Why is it in the hands of the DMV/DDS in most if not every state? Even the non-driver identification cards issued to those who don't drive are usually still issued by DMV/DDS. It's an odd system that wouldn't be designed as it is now if we were designing from scratch but we're use to it because that's how it evolved over time.
pjc50 8y ago
Sure, require ID; but it must be freely available and easily accessible, and states which end up with different ID takeup rates for different races should be prosecuted.
- Muromec 8y ago
  Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code, so voting is just another place to show it. It's not even about technologies - my is handwritten with photo being glued on it.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    Americans have a historical paranoia about the government tracking its citizens. I don't think it's entirely unjustifiable, but clearly, that ship has sailed a long time ago. At this point, the federal government already has so much information on the citizens, it could effectively implement a national ID scheme (and pretty much everyone will admit to that if you phrase the question right). So the remaining opposition is more symbolical than anything - accepting a national ID would be acquiescing to this state of affairs, while rejecting it allows to maintain the pretense that all the massive data-gathering operations (from IRS and Social Security, to DHS and NSA) are somehow fundamentally different. In practice, this just means extreme inefficiency whenever you have to deal with the government. I would dare say that citizens actually suffer a lot more from it than the government does (the government can always hire more bureaucrats to maintain and synchronize more databases).
    - burfog 8y ago
      Providing a secure national ID would do much more than just stop most kinds of voter fraud. It would stop identity theft. Stopping identity theft would reduce the cost of banking, including all kinds of credit, bringing consumer interest rates closer to non-consumer ones. Stopping identity theft would quickly cause the arrest of most fugitives, both immigration-related and otherwise. Stopping identity theft would reduce medical errors; today your treatment can be affected by an identity thief. (the doctors think you have drug-seeking behavior, a genetic condition, a disease, or issues with violence toward hospital staff... and this changes how they treat you)
cmurf 8y ago
There's essentially no one saying there should be no identity verification, just like there's no meaningful voter impersonation fraud. The complaint is the fairness of the burden to obtain acceptable ID, for voting. In Alabama, over a dozen driver's license office closures mean people in overwhelmingly black counties had a vastly high burden to obtain ID than people living in predominately white counties. There are all kinds of examples and variations on this theme. It's hardly any different than poll taxes, and literacy tests. They're just as blatantly racist as how photo ID rules are employed. Using your logic of Puerto Rico, since the vast majority of the U.S. went without photo ID's for voting for over 200 years with no statistically meaningful voter fraud problems, we don't need such laws today either. Meanwhile a recent case in Texas, a non-citizen with stolen photo ID had been illegally voting in elections, which means photo ID's do not assure there's no fraud. Anyway, people have a right to vote. It is not a privilege. And therefore the state cannot apply unreasonable burdens on people, which only serve to disenfranchise them from their right to vote.
- int_19h 8y ago
  > Anyway, people have a right to vote. It is not a privilege. Actually, in US, it is a privilege. Look up the Constitution - the original one doesn't define any right to vote at all (which was a necessary component of the 3/5th Compromise); all it says is that the states must have a "republican form of government". And all subsequent amendments specify what can't be used as a basis to deny the right to vote. Aside from the ones that did so explicitly, there's also the catch-all Equal Protection Clause - but even that does not amount to a full-on acknowledgement that voting is a basic right of any American citizen. This is why the states can e.g. deny the right to vote to felons - some doing so for the rest of their lives, and without any ability to reinstate it. And why all challenges to voter suppression have to be coached in anti-discrimination language (i.e. that they deny the right to vote to some protected minority specifically, as opposed to a generic right to vote). It's a very unfortunate state of affairs, and we desperately need a constitutional amendment that instates the right to vote as one of the fundamental rights of a citizen.
  - cmurf 8y ago
    I disagree with your interpretation. This is a more compelling argument: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/voting-right-or-privilege/262511/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/voting-...
SubiculumCode 8y ago
I dont trust mail in ballots because of the potemtial for spousal intimidation and fraud.
- amanaplanacanal 8y ago
  Oregon has had 100% vote by mail for 20 years. I would think that if this was a major problem it would have shown up by now.
  - SubiculumCode 8y ago
    And how would you detect it?
daphneokeefe 8y ago
In order to have an impact on election results, wouldn't you need a very large number of people without ID's standing in line all day long, for hours, to vote multiple times at different precincts? And they would have to give a valid name of a registered voter who had not showed up yet, or the pollworkers would realize that the same person was trying to vote twice. Or you could only impersonate voters who voted by mail (thereby voting twice in the same name). Sure, you can come up with examples where a very small number of votes determined an election outcome. But for the vast majority of important contests -- and especially for state and federal level -- it does not seem feasible to round up enough thousands of people to cast enough fraudulent ballots to affect the election outcome.
fabian2k 8y ago
In Germany you get a letter with an invitation to vote automatically for every election. This is based on the general resident registry, and you're required to register when you move. To vote you simply have to bring that letter with you, and then you usually don't need to show any ID. The election officers can still ask you for it if there is any doubt about your identity. Just before you enter your ballot your name is checked against the voter registry and crossed out from it. Of course that still leaves a bit of fraud potential, but not really on any scale that would affect the election. You'd still need to forge the letter and know the personal details of a voter that won't vote themselves.
matthewmacleod 8y ago
I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I’d be interested to know why though. Is it a problem in the US? In the UK at least, no ID is required and there is virtually no voter fraud. Is it really the case that the cost (disenfranchising groups with lower rates of access to photographic ID) is worth it to solve an issue that might not even exist?
- baddox 8y ago
  There is virtually no voter fraud (that would be solved by Id requirements) in the United States either. Every study I have seen shows on the order of dozens per year in the entire country, and many of those are probably accidental. And if you think about it, it’s pretty clear that in-person voter fraud is already difficult and risky enough in the US that it’s really not a scalable election manipulation strategy.
reaperducer 8y ago
Paper ballots are the superior method of voting Based on first-hand experience, Al Gore disagrees.
- taejo 8y ago
  Fine, then pen and paper ballots.
femto 8y ago
In Australia's case there is little need for presenting ID. An Australian polling booth has a copy of the electoral roll, with names and addresses (homeless people can enroll with name only). This roll is marked when you vote, and then the roll is analysed afterwards. Attempting to stuff the ballot box by impersonating someone will show up as duplicate marks on the roll. You won't get far with impersonating random people as voting is compulsory in most elections so duplicates will quickly happen. You could vote twice if guaranteed in advance that someone wasn't going to vote, but at best you will get only a small number of extra votes that way. The aim with an election isn't necessarily to outright prevent cheating, but to prevent undetected cheating. Hence why ID isn't so crucial (at least in Australia).

unethical_ban 8y ago

I respect the idea that paper is "unhackable" and that decentralized voting counts are less vulnerable to attack. I've been thinking alot about Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) and how to do an instant runoff with paper ballots at scale, notably for something like President. I suppose it's unlikely to occur, but in the instance of a national popular vote for president that results in a runoff, it is worth the extra time to go back through and count. After all, TV entertainment aside, there is no need to have results in same-day.

daphneokeefe 8y ago
I am a pollworker in San Francisco, and I can tell you from personal experience with thousands of voters that Ranked-Choice Voting is widely misunderstood. The common refrain is: I only want to vote for this one candidate, and not for anyone else. In a hotly-contested election, they absolutely do not want to vote for the other guy as #2.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  An interesting take, thank you. I wonder which would be more complex to explain: That is is easier to just rank the candidates and each "non-primary" vote only counts in a runoff? Or Do "optional" voting, and explain that if their #1 candidate gets eliminated, their voice will no longer count?
- ikfmpwdsoz 8y ago
  How hard is it to explain to people that their vote only goes to #2 if #1 is already out of the running?
  - daphneokeefe 8y ago
    Well, you only get an opportunity to explain something when they ask.
  - baddox 8y ago
    It’s a challenge when people have only ever been exposed to first-past-the-post voting systems their entire life. And besides, it’s really not fair to assume that voting systems are simple to understand. Just have a look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_electoral_system...
    - unethical_ban 8y ago
      I don't know why you're downvoted, but as someone advocating for RCV, I think that the "instant runoff" method is about as easy as it can get, next to the FPTP we use today. I agree there are other methods that are better by the book than the IRV method, but are exercises in statistics and graph theory.
- mikelward 8y ago
  Then make it optional preferential voting. You can number as many boxes as you want. It works that way in New South Wales. Apparently in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Malta, too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optional_preferential_voting https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optional_preferential_voting

kimmeld 8y ago

Past history of voter ID is mostly intended to lower voter turnout especially among certain groups of people. Historically it's not really about detecting fraud. I find it hard to take people seriously who think it's really about fraud. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poll_taxes_in_the_United_State...

adjkant 8y ago

> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being considered a problem then I find it really hard to take seriously the claims of people saying it sets too high of a bar. The problem is that the state and federal ID system is so fucked up that it disenfranchises voters. Until that system is fixed, you can't use it for voting. This issue then becomes a partisan one because voter fraud is so rare that it doesn't seem to need any additions, so strong pushes for voter ID laws (which almost never address the issue of the ID systems) are targeting those who are less likely to have ID, which tends to be concentrated with voting for one party. If anyone actually cared about voter ID laws for non-partisan reasons, it would go hand in hand with a national ID system.

stouset 8y ago
The same proponents of stronger voter ID laws are also the same people who are incomprehensibly paranoid about the notion of a national ID system.
- Mountain_Skies 8y ago
  Is that really so weird? All elections are essentially state elections. Even the presidency is really a state level election due to the way the electoral college works. There is no nationwide election so why would there need to be a nationwide ID system for voting? I'm in favor of requiring a photo id to vote but am well aware of the problems some have in obtaining such an id. That's the problem that needs to be corrected. It does need to be corrected first and we shouldn't just shrug our shoulders and go back to things the way they've been. Everyone should have easy access to a state endorsed identification card. It's an essential function of government and interaction with citizens. As such it should be funded by general taxation rather than a user fee. A state issued identification card is used for so much more than just authorization for driving a vehicle. Why is it in the hands of the DMV/DDS in most if not every state? Even the non-driver identification cards issued to those who don't drive are usually still issued by DMV/DDS. It's an odd system that wouldn't be designed as it is now if we were designing from scratch but we're use to it because that's how it evolved over time.

pjc50 8y ago

Sure, require ID; but it must be freely available and easily accessible, and states which end up with different ID takeup rates for different races should be prosecuted.

Muromec 8y ago
Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code, so voting is just another place to show it. It's not even about technologies - my is handwritten with photo being glued on it.
- int_19h 8y ago
  Americans have a historical paranoia about the government tracking its citizens. I don't think it's entirely unjustifiable, but clearly, that ship has sailed a long time ago. At this point, the federal government already has so much information on the citizens, it could effectively implement a national ID scheme (and pretty much everyone will admit to that if you phrase the question right). So the remaining opposition is more symbolical than anything - accepting a national ID would be acquiescing to this state of affairs, while rejecting it allows to maintain the pretense that all the massive data-gathering operations (from IRS and Social Security, to DHS and NSA) are somehow fundamentally different. In practice, this just means extreme inefficiency whenever you have to deal with the government. I would dare say that citizens actually suffer a lot more from it than the government does (the government can always hire more bureaucrats to maintain and synchronize more databases).
  - burfog 8y ago
    Providing a secure national ID would do much more than just stop most kinds of voter fraud. It would stop identity theft. Stopping identity theft would reduce the cost of banking, including all kinds of credit, bringing consumer interest rates closer to non-consumer ones. Stopping identity theft would quickly cause the arrest of most fugitives, both immigration-related and otherwise. Stopping identity theft would reduce medical errors; today your treatment can be affected by an identity thief. (the doctors think you have drug-seeking behavior, a genetic condition, a disease, or issues with violence toward hospital staff... and this changes how they treat you)

cmurf 8y ago

There's essentially no one saying there should be no identity verification, just like there's no meaningful voter impersonation fraud. The complaint is the fairness of the burden to obtain acceptable ID, for voting. In Alabama, over a dozen driver's license office closures mean people in overwhelmingly black counties had a vastly high burden to obtain ID than people living in predominately white counties. There are all kinds of examples and variations on this theme. It's hardly any different than poll taxes, and literacy tests. They're just as blatantly racist as how photo ID rules are employed. Using your logic of Puerto Rico, since the vast majority of the U.S. went without photo ID's for voting for over 200 years with no statistically meaningful voter fraud problems, we don't need such laws today either. Meanwhile a recent case in Texas, a non-citizen with stolen photo ID had been illegally voting in elections, which means photo ID's do not assure there's no fraud. Anyway, people have a right to vote. It is not a privilege. And therefore the state cannot apply unreasonable burdens on people, which only serve to disenfranchise them from their right to vote.

int_19h 8y ago
> Anyway, people have a right to vote. It is not a privilege. Actually, in US, it is a privilege. Look up the Constitution - the original one doesn't define any right to vote at all (which was a necessary component of the 3/5th Compromise); all it says is that the states must have a "republican form of government". And all subsequent amendments specify what can't be used as a basis to deny the right to vote. Aside from the ones that did so explicitly, there's also the catch-all Equal Protection Clause - but even that does not amount to a full-on acknowledgement that voting is a basic right of any American citizen. This is why the states can e.g. deny the right to vote to felons - some doing so for the rest of their lives, and without any ability to reinstate it. And why all challenges to voter suppression have to be coached in anti-discrimination language (i.e. that they deny the right to vote to some protected minority specifically, as opposed to a generic right to vote). It's a very unfortunate state of affairs, and we desperately need a constitutional amendment that instates the right to vote as one of the fundamental rights of a citizen.
- cmurf 8y ago
  I disagree with your interpretation. This is a more compelling argument: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/voting-right-or-privilege/262511/ https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/09/voting-...

SubiculumCode 8y ago

I dont trust mail in ballots because of the potemtial for spousal intimidation and fraud.

amanaplanacanal 8y ago
Oregon has had 100% vote by mail for 20 years. I would think that if this was a major problem it would have shown up by now.
- SubiculumCode 8y ago
  And how would you detect it?

daphneokeefe 8y ago

In order to have an impact on election results, wouldn't you need a very large number of people without ID's standing in line all day long, for hours, to vote multiple times at different precincts? And they would have to give a valid name of a registered voter who had not showed up yet, or the pollworkers would realize that the same person was trying to vote twice. Or you could only impersonate voters who voted by mail (thereby voting twice in the same name). Sure, you can come up with examples where a very small number of votes determined an election outcome. But for the vast majority of important contests -- and especially for state and federal level -- it does not seem feasible to round up enough thousands of people to cast enough fraudulent ballots to affect the election outcome.

fabian2k 8y ago

In Germany you get a letter with an invitation to vote automatically for every election. This is based on the general resident registry, and you're required to register when you move. To vote you simply have to bring that letter with you, and then you usually don't need to show any ID. The election officers can still ask you for it if there is any doubt about your identity. Just before you enter your ballot your name is checked against the voter registry and crossed out from it. Of course that still leaves a bit of fraud potential, but not really on any scale that would affect the election. You'd still need to forge the letter and know the personal details of a voter that won't vote themselves.

matthewmacleod 8y ago

I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I’d be interested to know why though. Is it a problem in the US? In the UK at least, no ID is required and there is virtually no voter fraud. Is it really the case that the cost (disenfranchising groups with lower rates of access to photographic ID) is worth it to solve an issue that might not even exist?

baddox 8y ago
There is virtually no voter fraud (that would be solved by Id requirements) in the United States either. Every study I have seen shows on the order of dozens per year in the entire country, and many of those are probably accidental. And if you think about it, it’s pretty clear that in-person voter fraud is already difficult and risky enough in the US that it’s really not a scalable election manipulation strategy.

reaperducer 8y ago

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting Based on first-hand experience, Al Gore disagrees.

taejo 8y ago
Fine, then pen and paper ballots.

femto 8y ago

In Australia's case there is little need for presenting ID. An Australian polling booth has a copy of the electoral roll, with names and addresses (homeless people can enroll with name only). This roll is marked when you vote, and then the roll is analysed afterwards. Attempting to stuff the ballot box by impersonating someone will show up as duplicate marks on the roll. You won't get far with impersonating random people as voting is compulsory in most elections so duplicates will quickly happen. You could vote twice if guaranteed in advance that someone wasn't going to vote, but at best you will get only a small number of extra votes that way. The aim with an election isn't necessarily to outright prevent cheating, but to prevent undetected cheating. Hence why ID isn't so crucial (at least in Australia).