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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

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.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      I don't know how to make it work with in person ID verification. They could just give you a faked UUID. I'd put it on the ballots when they're generated, so it was just as untraceable as the ballot itself. My assumptions are that 1) individual votes have almost no value on their own, so coercion or vote selling should be limited by low appeal, and 2) we still have a justice system, if someone forces you to vote a certain way, report it. Buying any significant number of votes would be exceedingly difficult to keep secret. Especially given how little compensation could be offered for them.
      - metiscus 4y ago
        You know, you're right about the ID verification - I didn't really think that through. You don't want your ID encoded with the ballot in a way that they can be associated.
      - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
        > we still have a justice system, if someone forces you to vote a certain way, report it. While it's true that law enforcement has a role to play here, if you're being paid, you probably aren't going to report on yourself. > individual votes have almost no value on their own That's probably true in a national election, but it might not be true in e.g. a mayoral race.
        smeej 4y ago
        An anecdote I share, recognizing the risk of downvoting: I've been an anarchist for years, and so do not normally cast votes. I have offered to sell my vote to anyone in my area (a swing area of New Hampshire) who wants another vote for their side in any election at any level. I've never even set a price. Not one person has ever offered a cent for it. I mention this just by way of making the point that small-scale vote buying, which would be the hardest kind to detect, isn't happening. Theoretically at least, detecting and preventing vote-buying at a scale significant enough to change the outcome of an election should be much easier. Would-be buyers have to get word out to enough people for it to matter, but if most people assume this is unethical (or even just undesirable), it shouldn't be hard to get nearly everyone else to be willing to rat out the buyers. I don't think the problem is nearly as hard to solve as you're thinking it is. The odds of your vote swinging an election at any level are lower than the risk of being struck by lightning twice. Nobody wants to buy one vote. They need to buy hundreds or thousands before it will matter, and that makes them easier to catch.
  - alexvoda 4y ago
    If you would have a ID you can later imput and check what you voted, you can be pressured by your boss/spouse/parent/etc. to reveal your vote and then be punished if you voted wrong. If voting is truly anonymous, you can just lie about your choices.
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      True, I recognize this is the trade-off. You cannot have perfect secrecy and perfect accountability both. Lately it seems like we're suffering a crisis in confidence, so maybe we could relax the perfect secrecy a bit to regain that trust.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Yeah, mail-in paper ballots work too. I was speaking more in the "we must have in-person" mind-set - I assuming convincing the election skeptics to use good machines is an easier task than convincing them on mail.
    - 988747 4y ago
      The difference between in-person vote and mail vote is chain of custody. Basically, when voting by mail you can never prove that your vote has not been tampered with in transit. With in-person vote there usually are procedures in place to ensure that no one messes with the ballot box.
  - jcrawfordor 4y ago
    Vote-by-mail ballots are fed through a computer tabulation system once received. In some states, especially those that are entirely vote-by-mail like OR and WA, large centralized tabulators are used that read multiple ballots per second from a stack feeder. In most states though it's very common for mail-in ballots to be fed through the same precinct tabulators as in-person votes, just at the election administrator's office instead of in a precinct location. This "mail-in precinct" approach has the advantage of keeping the process very consistent across voting methods, although it tends to require more staff since precinct tabulators are not built to quickly feed large numbers of ballots. Remember that hand-counting of ballots has been unusual in the US for quite some time. Some states process their mail-in ballots through large central tabulators even though they have only a small portion of mail-in votes, simply because they still have the central tabulators from before they switched to precinct tabulation, back when they used to drive the ballot boxes from every precinct and have staff re-stack the ballots and feed them to a tabulator after close. Ballot secrecy is unlikely to change. It was widely adopted in the US as a direct result of the fact that non-secret ballots facilitated purchased and forced votes, since the payer could verify that the voter cast the ballot they were supposed to. This is not a theoretical problem but one that was widespread in the 19th century. Something like you describe is already in available in many states, though, at the pollbook level rather than the tabulation level: in many states you can obtain a record online of whether or not you were issued a ballot and, if you were issued the ballot by mail, whether or not it was received back. The ballot is 'severed' from this record system (usually by physical means like dual-envelopes or even passing through a slot in a wall) before tabulation so that your voting choices cannot be proven after the fact to facilitate bribery or intimidation.
    - odysseus 4y ago
      I have a love/hate relationship with mail-in voting. It's super convenient. You don't have to be at the polling place at a certain time in bad weather. Just fill out the form in the comfort of your home and drop it in the mailbox. I hate it though because it really does make fraud and mismanagement easier: - People are sent ballots for people who no longer live in the house, or are dead - The post office fails to actually send you your ballot, as in this case: https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/mail-in-ballots-from-2020-discovered-in-baltimore-usps-facility https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/mail-in-ballots-f... - This article details several more ways to commit fraud via mail-in voting/absentee ballots - and cites fraud cases from both Republicans and Democrats: https://insidesources.com/mail-in-ballots-make-voter-fraud-easy-i-know-because-i-did-it/ https://insidesources.com/mail-in-ballots-make-voter-fraud-e...
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  The best solution is mail in ballots like WA/OR. Assuming there is some level of trust left within the members of the society.
coldpie 4y ago
I don't understand why that's better than just doing a scantron style bubble form with a pen. That's what we do in Minnesota. Introducing computers to the actual voting (not counting) process seems like needless complexity. Software quality and UI design in 2022 is absolutely abysmal. Keep It Simple, <polite S-word>.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  I suggest that your terminology is wrong. Voting is not the process of marking the ballot. Voting is the act of casting a ballot (marked, unmarked, vandalized, etc.) into a secure pile of ballots therefore making it anonymous. In terms of voting security the digital scanning and counting is much more problematic than electronically marking of choices on paper.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Because not everyone is familiar with the proper way to fill out a scantron, and some mess it up. "Hanging chad" type issues happen on scantrons -- people put an X or a checkmark through a bubble, people make a mistake and then "cross out" a bubble, mark too many options, etc. A voting machine that marks a paper ballot for you is the best of both worlds -- it is a paper ballot, but it marks it consistently, and allows the user to affirmatively confirm their choices were recorded correctly.
  - Thlom 4y ago
    We solved this issue by having one ballot for each party. In the voting booth you pick your party of choice ballot, fold it and put it in the box.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      In my local elections, we vote all at one time for numerous federal, state, county, and city elections, and some of those may have a dozen candidates, and some may permit multiple votes. And sometimes we have referendums on top of that. Were we to do that, we’d need a damn library full of paper in each booth, and someone to count how many slips of paper you’re dropping into each box. Doesn’t sound like it would work well for us.
antihero 4y ago
How do you verify the scanner software is telling you the truth though? Also what exactly is the point of doing this?
- kube-system 4y ago
  You take the stack of ballots and run them through a different scanner, and/or look at them with eyeballs.
  - antihero 4y ago
    So what’s the point in having them?
    - kube-system 4y ago
      They’re physical, tangible, plainly understood by all, and auditable.
snarf21 4y ago
The challenge here is that too many people will assume it did it right and not verify. That creates an attack vector. That creates another thing for people to yell fraud about. With paper, there can be no bait and switch, you physically have to press pencil to paper. As far as the "people don't color the circles correctly", the counter machine can kick that back and say "unclear scan, please verify all circles are colored correctly" and not count that 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.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    I don't know how to make it work with in person ID verification. They could just give you a faked UUID. I'd put it on the ballots when they're generated, so it was just as untraceable as the ballot itself. My assumptions are that 1) individual votes have almost no value on their own, so coercion or vote selling should be limited by low appeal, and 2) we still have a justice system, if someone forces you to vote a certain way, report it. Buying any significant number of votes would be exceedingly difficult to keep secret. Especially given how little compensation could be offered for them.
    - metiscus 4y ago
      You know, you're right about the ID verification - I didn't really think that through. You don't want your ID encoded with the ballot in a way that they can be associated.
    - Wowfunhappy 4y ago
      > we still have a justice system, if someone forces you to vote a certain way, report it. While it's true that law enforcement has a role to play here, if you're being paid, you probably aren't going to report on yourself. > individual votes have almost no value on their own That's probably true in a national election, but it might not be true in e.g. a mayoral race.
      - smeej 4y ago
        An anecdote I share, recognizing the risk of downvoting: I've been an anarchist for years, and so do not normally cast votes. I have offered to sell my vote to anyone in my area (a swing area of New Hampshire) who wants another vote for their side in any election at any level. I've never even set a price. Not one person has ever offered a cent for it. I mention this just by way of making the point that small-scale vote buying, which would be the hardest kind to detect, isn't happening. Theoretically at least, detecting and preventing vote-buying at a scale significant enough to change the outcome of an election should be much easier. Would-be buyers have to get word out to enough people for it to matter, but if most people assume this is unethical (or even just undesirable), it shouldn't be hard to get nearly everyone else to be willing to rat out the buyers. I don't think the problem is nearly as hard to solve as you're thinking it is. The odds of your vote swinging an election at any level are lower than the risk of being struck by lightning twice. Nobody wants to buy one vote. They need to buy hundreds or thousands before it will matter, and that makes them easier to catch.
- alexvoda 4y ago
  If you would have a ID you can later imput and check what you voted, you can be pressured by your boss/spouse/parent/etc. to reveal your vote and then be punished if you voted wrong. If voting is truly anonymous, you can just lie about your choices.
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    True, I recognize this is the trade-off. You cannot have perfect secrecy and perfect accountability both. Lately it seems like we're suffering a crisis in confidence, so maybe we could relax the perfect secrecy a bit to regain that trust.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Yeah, mail-in paper ballots work too. I was speaking more in the "we must have in-person" mind-set - I assuming convincing the election skeptics to use good machines is an easier task than convincing them on mail.
  - 988747 4y ago
    The difference between in-person vote and mail vote is chain of custody. Basically, when voting by mail you can never prove that your vote has not been tampered with in transit. With in-person vote there usually are procedures in place to ensure that no one messes with the ballot box.
- jcrawfordor 4y ago
  Vote-by-mail ballots are fed through a computer tabulation system once received. In some states, especially those that are entirely vote-by-mail like OR and WA, large centralized tabulators are used that read multiple ballots per second from a stack feeder. In most states though it's very common for mail-in ballots to be fed through the same precinct tabulators as in-person votes, just at the election administrator's office instead of in a precinct location. This "mail-in precinct" approach has the advantage of keeping the process very consistent across voting methods, although it tends to require more staff since precinct tabulators are not built to quickly feed large numbers of ballots. Remember that hand-counting of ballots has been unusual in the US for quite some time. Some states process their mail-in ballots through large central tabulators even though they have only a small portion of mail-in votes, simply because they still have the central tabulators from before they switched to precinct tabulation, back when they used to drive the ballot boxes from every precinct and have staff re-stack the ballots and feed them to a tabulator after close. Ballot secrecy is unlikely to change. It was widely adopted in the US as a direct result of the fact that non-secret ballots facilitated purchased and forced votes, since the payer could verify that the voter cast the ballot they were supposed to. This is not a theoretical problem but one that was widespread in the 19th century. Something like you describe is already in available in many states, though, at the pollbook level rather than the tabulation level: in many states you can obtain a record online of whether or not you were issued a ballot and, if you were issued the ballot by mail, whether or not it was received back. The ballot is 'severed' from this record system (usually by physical means like dual-envelopes or even passing through a slot in a wall) before tabulation so that your voting choices cannot be proven after the fact to facilitate bribery or intimidation.
  - odysseus 4y ago
    I have a love/hate relationship with mail-in voting. It's super convenient. You don't have to be at the polling place at a certain time in bad weather. Just fill out the form in the comfort of your home and drop it in the mailbox. I hate it though because it really does make fraud and mismanagement easier: - People are sent ballots for people who no longer live in the house, or are dead - The post office fails to actually send you your ballot, as in this case: https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/mail-in-ballots-from-2020-discovered-in-baltimore-usps-facility https://www.wmar2news.com/matterformallory/mail-in-ballots-f... - This article details several more ways to commit fraud via mail-in voting/absentee ballots - and cites fraud cases from both Republicans and Democrats: https://insidesources.com/mail-in-ballots-make-voter-fraud-easy-i-know-because-i-did-it/ https://insidesources.com/mail-in-ballots-make-voter-fraud-e...
lotsofpulp 4y ago
The best solution is mail in ballots like WA/OR. Assuming there is some level of trust left within the members of the society.

coldpie 4y ago

I don't understand why that's better than just doing a scantron style bubble form with a pen. That's what we do in Minnesota. Introducing computers to the actual voting (not counting) process seems like needless complexity. Software quality and UI design in 2022 is absolutely abysmal. Keep It Simple, <polite S-word>.

alexvoda 4y ago
I suggest that your terminology is wrong. Voting is not the process of marking the ballot. Voting is the act of casting a ballot (marked, unmarked, vandalized, etc.) into a secure pile of ballots therefore making it anonymous. In terms of voting security the digital scanning and counting is much more problematic than electronically marking of choices on paper.
kube-system 4y ago
Because not everyone is familiar with the proper way to fill out a scantron, and some mess it up. "Hanging chad" type issues happen on scantrons -- people put an X or a checkmark through a bubble, people make a mistake and then "cross out" a bubble, mark too many options, etc. A voting machine that marks a paper ballot for you is the best of both worlds -- it is a paper ballot, but it marks it consistently, and allows the user to affirmatively confirm their choices were recorded correctly.
- Thlom 4y ago
  We solved this issue by having one ballot for each party. In the voting booth you pick your party of choice ballot, fold it and put it in the box.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    In my local elections, we vote all at one time for numerous federal, state, county, and city elections, and some of those may have a dozen candidates, and some may permit multiple votes. And sometimes we have referendums on top of that. Were we to do that, we’d need a damn library full of paper in each booth, and someone to count how many slips of paper you’re dropping into each box. Doesn’t sound like it would work well for us.

antihero 4y ago

How do you verify the scanner software is telling you the truth though? Also what exactly is the point of doing this?

kube-system 4y ago
You take the stack of ballots and run them through a different scanner, and/or look at them with eyeballs.
- antihero 4y ago
  So what’s the point in having them?
  - kube-system 4y ago
    They’re physical, tangible, plainly understood by all, and auditable.

snarf21 4y ago

The challenge here is that too many people will assume it did it right and not verify. That creates an attack vector. That creates another thing for people to yell fraud about. With paper, there can be no bait and switch, you physically have to press pencil to paper. As far as the "people don't color the circles correctly", the counter machine can kick that back and say "unclear scan, please verify all circles are colored correctly" and not count that ballot.