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The UK has the most secure voting system I know. Voting machines are not used, votes are always paper-and-pencil. Your ballot form contains a unique serial numb

The UK has the most secure voting system I know. Voting machines are not used, votes are always paper-and-pencil. Your ballot form contains a unique serial number to prevent multiple votes. Votes are counted at the district level, with only totals being submitted up the chain, in order to protect privacy. It's simple and it works.

mnd999 4y ago
That doesn’t stop media firms after faster results and American voting machine manufacturers lobbying to change things every time we have an election.
explorer83 4y ago
How is the serial number used to confirm that the person using it is who the ballet was issued to?
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  When your ballot is handed to you, your home address is recorded in a log. It's handed to you inside the voting station, you can't take it back out.
  - j33zusjuice 4y ago
    Your ballot is linked to your address? So, someone could link a ballot to the voter? That’s not something we want in the US. It’s intended to be anonymous.
    - sbuttgereit 4y ago
      I live in San Francisco, CA, USA. Ballots here are also serialized and many (most?) people vote by mail which means that serialized ballots are mailed to you specifically at your registered address. After the vote, you can check the status of the ballot's serial number at the appropriate city/county website. It won't tell you who voted or the votes cast, but that it was received. So while the website won't link you to your votes, the city/county could absolutely make that connection since they control the serialization and the mailing. One hopes that they don't do this, and I'm sure they're not suppose to, but trust and wishes are the best surety we have for vote by mail ballots... there are ways to defeat the loss of anonymity in this case, but they involve not voting by mail or providing false signals (i.e. swapping ballots with someone else in your district).
    - LeoPanthera 4y ago
      This is, in theory, possible. However, the information remains in your local district, and is not passed up the chain with the results. It's one of those things that sounds bad in theory but is rarely an actual problem in practice.
- j33zusjuice 4y ago
  How do they verify the answer wasn’t overwritten, since it’s in pencil? I can imagine a lot of potential security flaws in that system.
  - LeoPanthera 4y ago
    Once you've recorded your vote, you personally insert it into a sealed box with a slot. The boxes are opened for counting as part of a public process, with independent observers.
generj 4y ago
Paper and pencil doesn’t work in the US because of how litigious we are, and because each state operates their own elections. If every state ran elections the same way we could standardize on something like the UK has and have collective faith in it. When some battleground states routinely come down to less than 1% of voters, incredibly marginal effects matter. The US still has institutional trauma from Hanging chads. Just look at all the varied reasons mailed ballots are rejected, especially in tight races. With paper and pencil, what happens if a mark got erased? If the circle is half filled? If the circle is quarter filled? All of these are questions that will be the subject of lawsuits in a mix of jurisdictions.
- fknorangesite 4y ago
  I'm in Canada; I can't speak to the specifics of the UK. > what happens if a mark got erased? If the circle is half filled? If the circle is quarter filled? When I sit down to vote, there is a very unambiguous set of instructions on how to fill it out: mark an X in the circle. - we all know perfectly well that pencil erasers aren't perfect - It's not a Scantron™ ffs! Is that what you're imagining? That's just a voting machine with extra steps! Every single ballot is counted by a human! https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-election-process/election-counting https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-e...
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    I sure hope it's counted by more than one human. What do you do if someone marks something like a Y and it looks like the ink ran out? (My local elections are indeed a Scantron-style procedure, incidentally. Bubble in the entire circle.)
    - fknorangesite 4y ago
      Obviously. I'll just quote my link directly for you, then: > First, election officers open the ballot boxes and count the ballots. Note the plural. Safeguards for Counting Votes and Reporting on Results: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=int/cou&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=int/co...
cm2187 4y ago
I wouldn't call it "the most secure", there is no id check (because there is no mandatory ID scheme) so the process to verify your identity is super loose. Also very little constraints on voting by mail, with the only form of authentication being a signature which is weak to say the least. France has much stronger controls on ID checks at the voting booth and vote by mail (in fact for most elections there is no vote by mail, you can only delegate your vote to a person who cannot act as a delegate to more than two people to prevent ballot harvesting).

mnd999 4y ago

That doesn’t stop media firms after faster results and American voting machine manufacturers lobbying to change things every time we have an election.

explorer83 4y ago

How is the serial number used to confirm that the person using it is who the ballet was issued to?

LeoPanthera 4y ago
When your ballot is handed to you, your home address is recorded in a log. It's handed to you inside the voting station, you can't take it back out.
- j33zusjuice 4y ago
  Your ballot is linked to your address? So, someone could link a ballot to the voter? That’s not something we want in the US. It’s intended to be anonymous.
  - sbuttgereit 4y ago
    I live in San Francisco, CA, USA. Ballots here are also serialized and many (most?) people vote by mail which means that serialized ballots are mailed to you specifically at your registered address. After the vote, you can check the status of the ballot's serial number at the appropriate city/county website. It won't tell you who voted or the votes cast, but that it was received. So while the website won't link you to your votes, the city/county could absolutely make that connection since they control the serialization and the mailing. One hopes that they don't do this, and I'm sure they're not suppose to, but trust and wishes are the best surety we have for vote by mail ballots... there are ways to defeat the loss of anonymity in this case, but they involve not voting by mail or providing false signals (i.e. swapping ballots with someone else in your district).
  - LeoPanthera 4y ago
    This is, in theory, possible. However, the information remains in your local district, and is not passed up the chain with the results. It's one of those things that sounds bad in theory but is rarely an actual problem in practice.
j33zusjuice 4y ago
How do they verify the answer wasn’t overwritten, since it’s in pencil? I can imagine a lot of potential security flaws in that system.
- LeoPanthera 4y ago
  Once you've recorded your vote, you personally insert it into a sealed box with a slot. The boxes are opened for counting as part of a public process, with independent observers.

generj 4y ago

Paper and pencil doesn’t work in the US because of how litigious we are, and because each state operates their own elections. If every state ran elections the same way we could standardize on something like the UK has and have collective faith in it. When some battleground states routinely come down to less than 1% of voters, incredibly marginal effects matter. The US still has institutional trauma from Hanging chads. Just look at all the varied reasons mailed ballots are rejected, especially in tight races. With paper and pencil, what happens if a mark got erased? If the circle is half filled? If the circle is quarter filled? All of these are questions that will be the subject of lawsuits in a mix of jurisdictions.

fknorangesite 4y ago
I'm in Canada; I can't speak to the specifics of the UK. > what happens if a mark got erased? If the circle is half filled? If the circle is quarter filled? When I sit down to vote, there is a very unambiguous set of instructions on how to fill it out: mark an X in the circle. - we all know perfectly well that pencil erasers aren't perfect - It's not a Scantron™ ffs! Is that what you're imagining? That's just a voting machine with extra steps! Every single ballot is counted by a human! https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-election-process/election-counting https://electionsanddemocracy.ca/canadas-elections/canadas-e...
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  I sure hope it's counted by more than one human. What do you do if someone marks something like a Y and it looks like the ink ran out? (My local elections are indeed a Scantron-style procedure, incidentally. Bubble in the entire circle.)
  - fknorangesite 4y ago
    Obviously. I'll just quote my link directly for you, then: > First, election officers open the ballot boxes and count the ballots. Note the plural. Safeguards for Counting Votes and Reporting on Results: https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=int/cou&document=index&lang=e https://www.elections.ca/content.aspx?section=vot&dir=int/co...

cm2187 4y ago

I wouldn't call it "the most secure", there is no id check (because there is no mandatory ID scheme) so the process to verify your identity is super loose. Also very little constraints on voting by mail, with the only form of authentication being a signature which is weak to say the least. France has much stronger controls on ID checks at the voting booth and vote by mail (in fact for most elections there is no vote by mail, you can only delegate your vote to a person who cannot act as a delegate to more than two people to prevent ballot harvesting).