Democracy in America is in trouble. For some reason we can't figure out how to cast votes and count them without blunders, inaccuracy and stupidity. Everyone thinks the solution is to embrace paper ballots rather than electronic. But the paper balloting process is a myth. The solution is computers and common sense. HERE'S MY PROPOSAL.
6:41 PM * PERMALINK * 5 comments
Like The Raw Feed? Then you'll LOVE the FREE Mike's List newsletter!
Find Me On:
Mike's List Newsletter
Cell Phone Version
About Mike Elgan
Columns
Search
Old
Secret Link
Twitter
Technorati
RSS Feed
FriendFeed
Facebook
Google
Digg
Computer America
Other Blogs
And More!
AD: Master Windows 7 with Chris Pirillo's Windows 7 Tips eBook!
MORE MIKE ELGAN STUFF
The World Is My Office
Three Seconds of Genius
Mike's List
The Book of Kindle
Enchiridion
The Spartan Diet
The Spartan Diet Blog
Comments:
Mike your proposal is so obvious and clearly defined that it makes you wonder why we have all this controversy in the first place.
GF
Your proposal seems technically reasonable and well thought out, though, perhaps it's too expensive. Local (and state) governments just don't budget much for elections, and creating dual-redundant sets of machines that individually print, scan, and even sherd paper, and connect to a local redundant network would probably cost many times what the current solutions cost. This system would also be much more complex for the volunteers to set up and maintain. Heck, I have trouble just keeping my shredder unjammed...
Mike,
A few technical observations.
a) Redundancy needs to be 3-way to allow voting. 2-way redundancy has the problem of the bad side thinking that the good side is bad and turning the good side off. This is not an insurmountable problem.
b) Printing a receipt that is human readable & bar-code readable presents the problem of verifying that the bar-code accurately represents what is human readable.
c) I think that you're missing a step to ensure that a single person doesn't vote multiple times before exiting the voting booth.
I agree that America should move toward electronic voting. I also believe that faith in the validity of the process should be ensured through open demonstration of the inherent safety of the process and not by trying to keep secrets by the equipment manufacturers.
In fact, now that I'm typing this, maybe there should be a requirement that a given manufacturer's equipment be no more than some % of the total machines at a polling place, allowing voters to choose a manufacturer that they are comfortable with (or not choose one they are uncomfortable with) and as a practical way to ensure standard compliance by all and to protect against a common flaw that might otherwise take down all machines at one location.
-Richard
this is so 25th century.
my wife tried to vote and found out she wasn't registered. huh? why does a US citizen need to be registered in the first place? don't they have antiquated computer systems that should know you are legally allowed to vote? then she found out she was in the wrong district. then she found out she was at the wrong place.
maybe if the US can figure out a way to LET people who actually WANT to vote, ummmmm....., vote, we can move on to actually figuring out a way to stopping counting hanging chads. can we first fix the voting process before dealing with paper jams, touch-screens and encrypted shredders?
i can just picture the army from the geek squad required to support the octogenarians trying to run the booths around the country...
Sorry, Mark, you got it wrong. You got it wrong just like anyone who believes in computer voting gets it wrong - the lack of a verifiable paper trail from the voter's hand to the total vote for a candidate.
First, the voter fills out a paper slip with his or her name and address; upon this paper slip is written the number of the ballot received by that voter. (The paper slips are kept separate from the completed ballots.)
The voter then fills out the paper ballot; usability testing reveals the best form for such a ballot. Right now, ballots that have voters fill in between arrows seems to work best ( ==> <== ).
The paper ballots are electronically scanned at the time of voting. Spoiled ballots are immediately identified and re-done by the voter.
The vote is tabulated, yes, electronically.
HOWEVER, any part of the vote can be verified. You can check random ballots by hand (or every last one) to verify the scan was correct, and that any part of the vote was correct.
If you put together the slip filled out by the voter and the numbered ballot, you can even make sure that there are no faked ballots, by checking with individual voters.
YOU MUST HAVE FULL VERIFICATiON ON PAPER. There is no other way.
I'm no Luddite; I've used computers for forty years and I love 'em. The earliest prediction of full-on electronic voting over the web was in Shockwave Rider - it's a great dream. But we are NOT EVEN CLOSE to being able to carry out full electronic voting in a trustworthy way. Didn't you pay attention to the voting "problems" in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006 - and the ones that are being set up in 2008? Read about how local precincts in Ohio are refusing to meet statewide standards for voting.
-Bill
Post a Comment
<< Home