6 ms·

It starts with being able to tell that the information was encoded correctly when I submitted it. Tell me this: what is the advantage of a barcode, over a sca

It starts with being able to tell that the information was encoded correctly when I submitted it. Tell me this: what is the advantage of a barcode, over a scantron-esque system where I can see which item I chose because a dot is filled in? The scantron-esque system is still efficiently machine readable; we've had scantron since I was a kid. The difference is, I can verify with my own two eyes that the information is encoded correctly on the ballot I submitted if it's done scantron-style. I cannot do that with barcodes. It adds another layer of safety. Do we still have to be able to trust the rest of the system? Yup. But I cannot trust anything at all if I cannot even verify that my vote was submitted correctly in the first place. JMHO.

Izkata 2y ago
Pretty sure GP is saying a scantron-style one can still be flipped or offset at the destination. They use position on the ballot, not OCR, to determine what the vote is.
- flakeoil 2y ago
  At least the source would be correct so 50% less chance of cheating i.e. the cheating did at least not occur while producing the vote.
- floating-io 2y ago
  It's not actually about how the ballot is interpreted by downstream hardware and software. That's a different issue. It's about the ability for the voter to determine that their own part of the process -- the recording of their own vote -- is done correctly in every respect. Each step of the system has to be verifiable as correct for the system to be trustworthy. As it stands right now, I cannot visually verify that my own vote produced a correct printed ballot. I have no way of doing that. This removes one of the most critical safeguards. If something in the software (malicious or otherwise) records an incorrect barcode, I have absolutely no way of knowing. That's a problem. Garbage in, garbage out.
  - anon84873628 2y ago
    >It's not actually about how the ballot is interpreted by downstream hardware and software. That's a different issue. To me, this seems like the only part worth worrying about, and any solution to it should satisfy your concerns as well. Every ballot should have a UUID that the voter takes with them (or make it a hash of their voter registration number or something). As soon as the ballot is processed, the results are posted to a public place. Voters can then confirm their ballot was recorded accurately. This still doesn't tell you that all the internal variables were incremented correctly, but you can separately aggregate the publicly posted results and compare with the aggregate reported by the machine. The problem this still doesn't solve is electronically stuffing in fake ballots.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > Every ballot should have a UUID that the voter takes with them (or make it a hash of their voter registration number or something). As soon as the ballot is processed, the results are posted to a public place. Voters can then confirm their ballot was recorded accurately. Opening the door for vote bribery or voter intimidation. $1,000 for every tag proving you voted for my candidate. If you don't prove you voted for my candidate, expect some retaliation!
      - anon84873628 2y ago
        You can already do that today by having people take a photo of their ballot. Or just buy their signed but otherwise blank mail-in ballot and complete it at gangster HQ. Or give them the money and don't require proof at all, because most people will just do what they agreed to do. This doesn't happen today because it isn't scalable and is easy to get caught and prosecuted. Electronic manipulation is more appealing because it does not require interacting with people.
        vel0city 2y ago
        Taking a photo of the ballot is illegal. Also, one can just always strike the ballot before putting it in the machine after having the completed ballot. In some places of mail in ballots it's possible to cancel the mail in ballots and vote in person after.
gruez 2y ago
>It adds another layer of safety. Do we still have to be able to trust the rest of the system? Yup. But I cannot trust anything at all if I cannot even verify that my vote was submitted correctly in the first place. I don't disagree that it's strictly better, but the improvements in security are marginal. Any audits/recounts would be done by looking at the human readable part of the ballot, and would therefore be unaffected. Moreover, regardless of whether there's barcodes or not, you'd want to conduct proactive recounts to mitigate any risk for tampered/broken machines. In that case, getting rid of barcodes wouldn't add any security in practice.
- nothrabannosir 2y ago
  With a scantron voting system every single voter becomes an auditor. That’s orders of magnitude more auditing than will ever be achieved by randomized barcode audits and it will catch far smaller discrepancies. Even if a machine made only one mistake ever, it would stand a chance of getting caught. Not so with barcodes. Seems a pretty substantial difference to me.
  - gruez 2y ago
    >That’s orders of magnitude more auditing than will ever be achieved by randomized barcode audits and it will catch far smaller discrepancies. Even if a machine made only one mistake ever, it would stand a chance of getting caught. Not so with barcodes. When was the last time you had a printer print the wrong thing? Moreover, if an election is close enough that a few votes matter, there's definitely going to be a manual recount, so any advantage is purely academic (eg. knowing that candidate A won by 51.704% rather than 51.703%). Point is, either the error is big enough that it's trivially detected with spot checks, or the margins are so close that a manual recount is performed automatically.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    How are you auditing what the machine actually rendered from the constellation of dots you filled in for its actual count? A collection of dots and a collection of bars are the same to me in terms of trusting the computer actually read it right.
vel0city 2y ago
But how do you know what position 5 option 2 is set to the person you voted for on the tabulation machine for a bubble fill? It's not like the counting machine is OCR'ing the choice to figure it out. In the end the pattern of dots on a scantron to what the computer thinks the ballot was is just as illegible as a collection of bar codes. It's practically the same thing. I'm fine with it so long as the choices are also printed in a human readable way at the bottom. If it was just a giant bar code or whatever I wouldn't like it.

Izkata 2y ago

Pretty sure GP is saying a scantron-style one can still be flipped or offset at the destination. They use position on the ballot, not OCR, to determine what the vote is.

flakeoil 2y ago
At least the source would be correct so 50% less chance of cheating i.e. the cheating did at least not occur while producing the vote.
floating-io 2y ago
It's not actually about how the ballot is interpreted by downstream hardware and software. That's a different issue. It's about the ability for the voter to determine that their own part of the process -- the recording of their own vote -- is done correctly in every respect. Each step of the system has to be verifiable as correct for the system to be trustworthy. As it stands right now, I cannot visually verify that my own vote produced a correct printed ballot. I have no way of doing that. This removes one of the most critical safeguards. If something in the software (malicious or otherwise) records an incorrect barcode, I have absolutely no way of knowing. That's a problem. Garbage in, garbage out.
- anon84873628 2y ago
  >It's not actually about how the ballot is interpreted by downstream hardware and software. That's a different issue. To me, this seems like the only part worth worrying about, and any solution to it should satisfy your concerns as well. Every ballot should have a UUID that the voter takes with them (or make it a hash of their voter registration number or something). As soon as the ballot is processed, the results are posted to a public place. Voters can then confirm their ballot was recorded accurately. This still doesn't tell you that all the internal variables were incremented correctly, but you can separately aggregate the publicly posted results and compare with the aggregate reported by the machine. The problem this still doesn't solve is electronically stuffing in fake ballots.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    > Every ballot should have a UUID that the voter takes with them (or make it a hash of their voter registration number or something). As soon as the ballot is processed, the results are posted to a public place. Voters can then confirm their ballot was recorded accurately. Opening the door for vote bribery or voter intimidation. $1,000 for every tag proving you voted for my candidate. If you don't prove you voted for my candidate, expect some retaliation!
    - anon84873628 2y ago
      You can already do that today by having people take a photo of their ballot. Or just buy their signed but otherwise blank mail-in ballot and complete it at gangster HQ. Or give them the money and don't require proof at all, because most people will just do what they agreed to do. This doesn't happen today because it isn't scalable and is easy to get caught and prosecuted. Electronic manipulation is more appealing because it does not require interacting with people.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        Taking a photo of the ballot is illegal. Also, one can just always strike the ballot before putting it in the machine after having the completed ballot. In some places of mail in ballots it's possible to cancel the mail in ballots and vote in person after.

gruez 2y ago

>It adds another layer of safety. Do we still have to be able to trust the rest of the system? Yup. But I cannot trust anything at all if I cannot even verify that my vote was submitted correctly in the first place. I don't disagree that it's strictly better, but the improvements in security are marginal. Any audits/recounts would be done by looking at the human readable part of the ballot, and would therefore be unaffected. Moreover, regardless of whether there's barcodes or not, you'd want to conduct proactive recounts to mitigate any risk for tampered/broken machines. In that case, getting rid of barcodes wouldn't add any security in practice.

nothrabannosir 2y ago
With a scantron voting system every single voter becomes an auditor. That’s orders of magnitude more auditing than will ever be achieved by randomized barcode audits and it will catch far smaller discrepancies. Even if a machine made only one mistake ever, it would stand a chance of getting caught. Not so with barcodes. Seems a pretty substantial difference to me.
- gruez 2y ago
  >That’s orders of magnitude more auditing than will ever be achieved by randomized barcode audits and it will catch far smaller discrepancies. Even if a machine made only one mistake ever, it would stand a chance of getting caught. Not so with barcodes. When was the last time you had a printer print the wrong thing? Moreover, if an election is close enough that a few votes matter, there's definitely going to be a manual recount, so any advantage is purely academic (eg. knowing that candidate A won by 51.704% rather than 51.703%). Point is, either the error is big enough that it's trivially detected with spot checks, or the margins are so close that a manual recount is performed automatically.
- vel0city 2y ago
  How are you auditing what the machine actually rendered from the constellation of dots you filled in for its actual count? A collection of dots and a collection of bars are the same to me in terms of trusting the computer actually read it right.

vel0city 2y ago

But how do you know what position 5 option 2 is set to the person you voted for on the tabulation machine for a bubble fill? It's not like the counting machine is OCR'ing the choice to figure it out. In the end the pattern of dots on a scantron to what the computer thinks the ballot was is just as illegible as a collection of bar codes. It's practically the same thing. I'm fine with it so long as the choices are also printed in a human readable way at the bottom. If it was just a giant bar code or whatever I wouldn't like it.