On Sat, Apr 15, 2006 at 06:14:23PM -0400, Tim Schmidt wrote:
>
> > The real principle here is that the paper ballot guarantees that
> > nothing can come between the recorded vote and the voter's eyeball. It's
> > the ultimate tamperproof system. There is no way to lie to the voter about
> > exactly what was recorded.
>
> Agreed. I think, however, that the paper ballot is probably not the
> only system in the universe that could guarantee such a thing.
Maybe not, but it doesn't depend on any technology that only trained
specialists can understand and validate. Any citizen can understand it at a
glance, and see that there's no way to create a discrepancy between what the
voter saw and what's recorded on the ballot. Everything is directly visible
to _unaided_ human senses. Remember, it's as important for the soundness of
the republic that the public be able to verify that the electoral process is
correct, as that it actually be correct.
>
> > The other thing the paper ballot does is leave a durable and
> > authoritative record of the election, for anyone who wants to question the
> > official count, and pay for a recount or appeal the election officials'
> > certified returns -- all of which are provided for in NH law. The
> > hand-marked paper ballot provides the fundamental infrastructure to make the
> > electoral process fault-tolerant.
>
> Well... it allows a few people to do so. Remember we're in
> ultra-paranoid security mode here, and nothing beats massive peer
> review. Someone else counting my ballot miles away behind closed
> doors doesn't sound like that to me.
NH law forbids counting the ballots miles away behind closed doors.
It requires the ballots to be counted in the polling place where they were
cast, as soon as the polls close, by the moderator and the inspectors from
the opposing parties, and within public view. When the "polls close" it
doesn't mean the doors are locked. It means no more voting is allowed, and
the counting starts.
As to massive peer review, I've been thinking about some ideas on
how that could be done, and expect to discuss them with some election
officials and legislators shortly.
The one real weakness with the present system, optical scanning of
hand-marked ballots, is that nobody orders a manual recount unless they
suspect an error, which they usually don't unless the election is close. An
internal fault could produce a large error as easily as a small one. So I'm
throwing around the idea that any party with an issue at stake in an
election would have the right to either make an unofficial count with
unapproved equipment, or make and publish copies of the images of the marked
ballots, which could then be counted and analyzed offline by unapproved
equipment. That would serve as a canary in the coal mine. It would be
cheap enough to do at every election, every time. That would be the quality
control check, which would provide real data for an informed decision on
when it's worthwhile to pay the fee for an official recount.
> So, forgive me if I play the devil's advocate here, what is to stop
> someone inserting ballots in their favor before the counting phase?
The election inspectors from the opposing parties, the newspaper and
TV reporters present, and any random citizens like me standing around
watching the whole thing. But mostly it's the inspectors, and that's why NH
law requires their presence.
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