Voting mechanics

[magid]

OK, so I've only ever voted in MA, and both municipalities I've voted in use paper ballots. Not anything tricky to understand, just basically scantron things: fill in the bubbles and you're done. Just like all those standardized tests everyone has to take these days, so the voters are prepared, as it were. The thought even of using a lever sort of machine makes me nervous, and computers doubly so, since they're theoretically hackable in even more ways. And there's no paper trail.

Please, someone explain why there isn't more standardization in how ballots are made and processed? OK, and why we don't all use a scantron sort of ballot, since it leaves a paper trail, and isn't tricky to use at all.


Nothing about whether the car-repair guys were involved in the election in this post. Or, there wasn't.

Comments

[magid.livejournal.com]

I'm sure what I'm used to has something to do with it. I've seen the havoc that can be wreaked using punch cards, and after 2000 don't understand why they'd still be in use if there were any doubt about accuracy (I suppose this is too much of an idealist's view).

Levers: how can I know that the levers I pull actually vote for who I want? I'm probably being suspicious here, but I could imagine (far too easily, unfortunately) someone messing with the machines just enough so that, say 5% of the X votes go to Y. And there'd be no way to double-check this.

I suppose I'm a bit of a dinosaur on this one.

[geekosaur]

For one thing, each party is assigned a specific row on the machine. Admittedly you can't verify, but it makes it relatively easy for someone else to verify the machine has been set up correctly.

And it seems to me your worry applies even more so to punch cards, and especially to touchscreens; both are susceptible to someone tossing in some code to randomly alter (or even more easily, invalidate) the vote.

There comes a point where you just have to trust. A paper record of your ballot would be nice, although it too has problems (many of the social engineering sort, which is one reason why there is pressure not to do this).

[magid.livejournal.com]

My worries definitely apply to punch cards, and even more so to touchscreens. It's one of the things that concerned me even before election day.

I know, my paper vote could be thrown out (though I keep assuming that feeding it into the ballot box myself would keep that from happening, I have to admit there must be some way to get around all that), or something. It still doesn't feel like the high-tech approach is the appropriate one for this situation. Not yet, anyway.

And I know that there are other issues from paper ballots, but for some reason those seem more able to be worked out than the other possible problems. Again, probably just what I'm used to...