8 ms·

This is one of the few areas where paper is still king, IMHO. Been filling out paper ballots for years. I don't want to vote on a machine. A machine can coun

• anonym29 4y ago
  +1! But this is still a net positive. Multiple forms of validation and open sourcing the software running on these machines are both components of a "defense in depth" strategy.
• capableweb 4y ago
  So you're for this voting system then? Your messages reads like you're against the system mentioned in the submission, but it seems like the system is actually doing it via paper, just like how you want it? The trial described in the article: > On November 8, VotingWorks machines will be used in a real election in real time. New Hampshire is the second state to use the open-source machines after Mississippi first did so in 2019. Some 3,000 voters will run their paper ballots through the new machines, and then, to ensure nothing went awry, those same votes will be hand counted in a public session in Concord, N.H. It seems to involve paper ballots, as far as I can understand it. And this is how the authors of the voting system describes it themselves: https://www.voting.works/voting-system https://www.voting.works/voting-system
  • ilc 4y ago
    I'm not sure I like VMDs. They can lead to slippery slopes. IE: Only Fred used the VMD... Or how does the counter interpret the VMD? Are people vigilant about checking their ballots? Pen, paper -> Into Box -> Counting, KISS. I can deal with a scantron. Not much more is needed here. I'd rather we work on chain of custody and figuring out who has voted etc, that are harder to solve. Though honestly, the fraud rates are so low, on double voting, I suspect made up voters, and ballot box stuffing are bigger concerns.
    • anigbrowl 4y ago
      You originally wrote: > Been filling out paper ballots for years. I don't want to vote on a machine. A machine can count my vote. But there should be a paper that goes in the ballot box, so it can be recounted using multiple methods. And that's what happens here. People vote on paper, they put their paper ballots in a box, a machine counts them, and they are also separately counted by hand, in public. I'm not sure what you're talking about with 'VMDs', an abbreviation that nobody else in this thread has used, and which doesn't appear in the link from the GP post. Are you for the system being used in New Hampshire, or not?
• onionisafruit 4y ago
  This is what I like about the machine I vote on in Texas. You vote on the machine then it prints the ballot for you. You walk your ballot to a scanner and feed it in where it tells you it successfully read your ballot.
  • snazz 4y ago
    I just voted on the same type of system in Wisconsin. It’s nice to have the paper trail. When I voted in Minnesota, I made my selections by filling in bubbles and then feeding the paper into a machine. Either way there’s a physical piece of paper with my selection on it.
  • alistairSH 4y ago
    Something like this sounds like the best solution. I want a paper ballot I can inspect before it gets fed into the counting machine (and which is kept after scanning for recounts, should the need arise). If that ballot is marked by machine to avoid "hanging chads", all the better.
    • rootusrootus 4y ago
      It would take a lot to convince me of that. I haven't voted at a precinct in decades. I vote in my living room, then drop the ballot in my mailbox. Plenty of time to do some research, consider my options, banter with my wife about the issues, etc. A few days later I go to the county website to make sure they received my ballot. The only thing I'd like to see is a relaxation of this idea that ballots need perfect secrecy as the most important goal, because that runs directly at odds with accountability. I'd like my ballot to come with a UUID that I could put into the public web site and verify my votes were recorded correctly. All those UUIDs and corresponding votes should be public, so everyone can do their own math. It would make coercion easier, but I don't see that as the most important issue.
      • metiscus 4y ago
        The UUID thing is an attractive thought but it also would act as an incentive to sell ones vote. Secret ballots protect from coercion and vote selling, as you can't verify someone voted how you paid them to. With validation you could see people literally buying votes. Just something to think about. I totally agree it would be nice to have a post vote validation. Maybe you get a UUID but have to submit that in person with an ID check to view the results? That would seem to meet the intended goal and minimize the hazards but with a cost to convenience.
• cjpearson 4y ago
  The title is misleading. New Hampshire uses paper ballots and ballot counting machines. Hand-counting is used in some cases such as recounts. They are trialing new ballot counting machines, not electronic voting machines.
• jjeaff 4y ago
  The vast majority of voting machines in the US creates a paper trail. Usually, you vote and the system prints out a receipt showing your vote which is then kept in the case of later hand audits.
• Dracophoenix 4y ago
  Even of that leads to hanging chads potentially costing a presidency again?
• alexvoda 4y ago
  While I agree with you that the ballot should be physical, electronic counting defeats the purpose of transparency. Counting should also be manual in the presence of representatives of each candidate. Marking of ballots and voter eligibility checking do not present any issues if done electronically. Maybe one way to address the issues of electronic counting would be to have parallel counts by each candidate (and their reps) using their own hardware and software with a manual count in case the electronic counts of every candidate do not match. But this means each candidate has to bring their own counting infrastructure which is prohibitive.
  • a9h74j 4y ago
    > parallel counts by each candidate I have often imagined having say two scanners in physical sequence (so passing through a ballet is a single operation), and having more than one (competing) recorder for the output of each scanner head. This would require some standardization of form factors and interfaces, but with small enough electronics units and scanners, in principle parallel data paths could be included in a single intentional "infrastructure".
  • d_christiansen 4y ago
    Another nice method to reduce risk from electronic counting is called the "Benaloh Challenge" (after Josh Benaloh, the inventor). The idea is that there are two steps to putting the paper ballot into the machine: first, the machine precommits to an encryption of its count (e.g. by printing some paper with evidence on it), and then the voter decides whether to spoil the ballot or actually cast it. If the voter spoils the ballot, then they get a new paper ballot to vote on, but they can retain the commitment. Voters may spoil any number of ballots. Decryptions of spoiled ballots along with enough information to check the machine's work are provided to the voter, either immediately or at the end of the day. This means that a cheating machine cannot cheat very much, though the whole thing also really relies on a verifiable privacy-preserving audit trail for the actual count (e.g. with homomorphic encryption). It at least means that nobody need trust the actual computers.
• jcrawfordor 4y ago
  The machines in use, from VotingWorks, are precinct tabulators. This means that the voter fills out a paper ballot and the machine scans and retains it, allowing for recount either manually or by alternate machines later on---exactly as you describe. Precinct tabulation was developed to reduce election costs and speed up counting by avoiding the need to transport ballots to a central location and stack and feed them to begin tabulation---they are fed by the voter and tabulated on-site. Almost all precinct tabulators, including those from VotingWorks, are offline and tabulate results to multiple storage media that are physically transported to a totalizing system (typically with paper tape printout as an audit and backup measure, in addition to the availability of the original ballots). This allows election administrators to begin posting a substantial portion of returns within an hour or so of polls closing, rather than the many hours historically required to feed ballots to central tabulators. This is particularly important since polling has found that many voters now distrust results that are delayed in posting and tend to view multiple-day vote tabulation as an indication of fraud, which has added to the motivation of election administrators to have most returns available the night after the election rather than in the following days... a logistical challenge that is difficult to meet without precinct tabulation, given the very limited budget most election administrators have to hire temporary staff. Unfortunately many people now conflate "voting machine" with direct-recording electronic or DRE machines. While DRE machines became common for a short period after the Helping America Vote Act imposed accessibility requirements that were difficult to meet with paper ballots, most voting machine vendors now offer "ballot marking machines" (sometimes integrated into the precinct tabulator) that allow individuals with special needs to mark a paper ballot using methods like voice feedback. The marked paper ballot can be verified by the voter or another individual before tabulation. Ballot marking machines have mostly eliminated the original motivation for DRE voting and the popularity of DRE voting across the United States has decreased since the shortly-post-HAVA period (2004 election cycle, basically), with many states prohibiting DRE entirely or DRE without voter verified paper audit trail (VVPAT), an arrangement in which all machines essentially function as ballot markers and produce a paper ballot with the voter's selections for the voter to inspect. DRE with VVPAT can be attractive because it integrates the "ballot on demand" system into the voting machine, simplifying the three-step process typical of precinct tabulation where the voter obtains a ballot from a ballot-on-demand workstation, marks it, and then inserts it into a tabulator. Ballot-on-demand is functionally required by most modern election administrators because it facilitates "voter convenience" models where voters can appear at any precinct (usually within their county), not just at the single precinct in which they reside. The reason for this is simply that, considering the multiple taxing jurisdictions in most parts of the US, a single county election can have hundreds of distinct "ballot styles." Preprinting every ballot style for every precinct is impractical and encourages fraud due to the number of valid ballots "lying around." Ballot-on-demand tends to have a very positive impact on election integrity in this way: the ballot does not physically exist until it is issued by the BOD system which is typically integrated into the pollbook system such that a ballot cannot be issued without marking a voter as voted in the pollbook. DRE with VVPAT is mostly equivalent to precinct tabulation with BOD, but many prefer precinct tabulation with BOD because the majority of voters (those not using assistive technology) mark their ballots manually which decreases the risk of mismarking by a ballot marker. It's important that American voters understand that non-auditable voting machines are no longer common in the US and are found only in some states, and the portion of votes counted by methods without paper audit trail is decreasing year over year as states replace aging DRE equipment. Unfortunately, the larger problem with US election administration is not DRE machines but funding. State election administrators usually operate on extremely restrictive budgets. States originally purchased DRE machines mostly because they were the cheapest option that met HAVA requirements, which essentially required many states to wholesale replace their voting equipment on short notice. Most states that use DRE equipment today use it because they cannot afford to replace it. There is very little, even zero, real support for DRE machines other than for the simple reason that states cannot afford to purchase anything else... and this is no longer as true today due to more affordable ballot marking machines, and vanishingly few election administrators are choosing DRE when they have funding available to replace voting systems. A larger concern in voting security is likely registration and pollbook systems, which are often poorly audited and from small software vendors, once again largely due to the small budgets available to pay for them. In the cases that voting irregularities have been found in the US, they are virtually all a result of defects or limitations of the pollbook system and unrelated to the actual vote tabulation. This encompasses situations like individuals voting multiple times---one voter, one vote is a responsibility of the pollbook system and not the tabulator, which is unaware of the voter's identity as a precaution to protect secrecy of the ballot, constitutionally required for federal and many state and local elections.
• dpkirchner 4y ago
  I want to see examples of ballots that changed votes during recounts. I'm curious about what went wrong with the initial scan (I have ideas, of course) but seeing the actual problems would be nice.
• tylersmith 4y ago
  How does giving the vote aggregators a piece of paper assure to you that the outcome reflects that paper?
• Buttons840 4y ago
  Yes. Paper ballots in please. Everyone thinks about counting. "We need fast counting, we need accurate counting" they say. We also need to think about understanding and trust. Think of your neighbor, think of 'Florida man', do you expect them to understand a voting machine? Do you expect them to trust a voting machine? I'm a computer programmer and am hesitant to claim I understand voting machines. I do understand paper though, and I do trust the nice people I went to church with when I see them running the polls.