[I'd like this message to be the end of the voting thread... --Perry]
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I have read the electronic voting messages with some interest. Many
of them miss important points about the real reasons for registration
and validation of traditional physical voting.
But I was most surprised by my friend Perry's preference for physical
over electronic voting.
(I'm basing this on my experience implementing software to verify
petition and poll signatures -- a mainstay of my consulting business
throughout the '80s and early '90s. My PPP efforts were funded by
the campaigns of my then Congressman and US Senator, to better
transfer drivers license and registration information between
networked machines. I've been actively involved in electoral
politics for over 25 years, and my current SO is an elected official.)
Poll watching is a fine thing. But most polls aren't watched. More
frequently, we use poll "closers" to carry the counts back to central
locations. The abuses that I've uncovered electronically were hard
(or impossible) to discern by poll watchers.
The most common problem is a corrupt clerk or vote tabulating
organization. Since the counters usually have an interest in the
outcome of the election (Michigan county and township clerks are
elected, too), they are motivated to skew local elections.
The old mechanical polling machines are notoriously unreliable. The
root of the problem is the manual transfer of the counts from the
machine to paper.
When an aged machine "jams", it has to be cleared. The official
tally of intermediate counts is the only tally. There are many
reports of suspicious jamming.
Later verifications only occur when the election is challenged --
a rarity. We uncovered a probable fraud using statistical measures
some 6 years after the election, much too late for verification.
In other cases, a challenge found the errors before the machines
could be wiped.
Local elections usually have fewer votes than national. A closely
contested local election can be reversed by adding a few dozen or
hundred votes to each precinct tally for that race -- completely
undetectably by poll watchers.
We've found that punched card ballots significantly ease later
verification, as they are kept for longer periods of time, are not
wiped for later elections, and are electronically counted. These
advantages would be available for electronic voting, too.
Multiple registrations are extremely common. Once domicile has
been established in any location (or faked), it is easy to register.
Many folks simply forget to resign their old registrations as they
move (or the lazy or corrupt clerks don't process the resignations).
Likewise, deaths are not cross-tabulated with voting registrations.
The signatures were virtually impossible to cross-check until
recently (using electronic means). Cheap photocopies (most of the
leading FOIA cases in Michigan are over access to voter address,
registration and poll records) and now digital cameras have helped
a lot. Before, there simply was no good way to check for duplicate
names and signatures.
Cross-checking electronic registrations should be much easier,
and any system that doesn't take such things into account is
useless.
Meanwhile, the names of voters at polling places are inscribed by
the poll worker, not by the voter. This aids readability, but not
checking that the actual voter arrived, or the correct voter was
listed. Here poll watchers can help, but only where the precincts
are small enough that the poll watcher know the voters. Michigan
precincts typically have several thousand voters, because such a
small proportion actually vote.
Moreover, there have been suspicious reversals of elections by
absentee ballot (processed entirely by clerks). Not much a poll
watcher can do there.
Electronic voting will completely obviate the need for direct poll
watching. Instead, we'll need election certification of the
software and processing by independent third parties.
I don't see how anything about electronic voting will improve
participation. That's largely due to the negative tenor of our
adversarial process. There's nothing to inspire the voters.
Instead, it makes them hate the process and the candidates.
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