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> The voter fills in the identifier on a Scantron-style paper ballot. The voter will mess this up a disturbing fraction of the time. It will be rejected. The
by amalcon 6y ago
> The voter fills in the identifier on a Scantron-style paper ballot.
The voter will mess this up a disturbing fraction of the time. It will be rejected. The voter will try again, possibly have it rejected again, give up, and go on Twitter to complain about the new system.
Also, I can go to vote, surreptitiously take two strips of paper, use one, pocket the other. I coerce my spouse into using that one, and pocket the one they took.
> It becomes difficult to coerce a voter because they can say any one of the published ballots is theirs.
Maybe for simple ballots. A question including e.g. a ranking of ten candidates has about 3.6 million possible configurations -- more if undervotes or other ties are permitted. The voter can be coerced to fill this out in a specific way to self-identify, and then vote in a prescribed way on another question.
edit: Of course, this vulnerability already exists: the voter could be given that same instruction. An observer of the ballot counting process can tell if the correct ballot was cast.
- Mindless2112 6y agoGood points, though they're rather at odds. If you assume voters will mess up their ballots that frequently then the voter being coerced can just find a ballot that's close to what they were coerced to do and say they messed up the rest. No way to prevent surreptitiously taking more than one strip of paper comes to mind. Someone should be observing the voters take the strips of paper to ensure only one is taken, but that doesn't prevent sleight of hand. But if there are mail-in ballots, you've already basically given up on voter coercion anyway.