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August 16, 2007

Concerning Election Reform – Grimgold

Filed under: Uncategorized — grimgold @ 10:08 pm

Concerning Election Reform

It’s very exciting to me that with our technology, even the confused little old lady in Florida cannot screw up the voting system. Instead of her being able to carefully hang a chad, or vote for both Gore and Bush, she must now press a frail, uncertain finger against a touch screen that won’t tolerate anything other than a single choice.
But now, as the election reform issue turns to other topics, there is a growing mindset that is willing to sacrifice secrecy for accurate vote count. This bothers me because I don’t want man or machine to know how we vote.
The question, then, is how do we obtain both a very high degree of voting privacy and accuracy?
This is how:

(1) Require photo identification against the up-to-date list of names of registered voters.
We should stride into the voting precinct and show picture I.D. to the poll worker, who then
finds us on the list. Then we sign on the line next to our name, and go
vote.
(2) Use a computer touch screen which both issues a paper ballot, and records the vote electronically.
The paper ballots are then carefully counted, the count is matched against the number of
people who showed i.d., and signed the list, and against the computer disk record. All three
must match: paper ballot, number of people who signed to vote, and computer disk count.
So if 2000 people showed I.D.., 2000 must have voted electronically and there must be 2000
paper ballots. If they don’t match, work it out amongst all parties to satisfaction.
(3) Randomly pre-assign the ballot with a number, issued to the voter.
For example, the number 4XXX2170 might be your ballot number. This number is on your
paper ballot and you either write it down or tear a little tab with the number on it before putting the paper ballot in the ballot box..
Then all the numbers are displayed on the internet. No one else has any idea who 4XXX2170
is, but you can find it, thereby showing that your vote was recorded and counted. This also
gives the total number of voters, again. If not there, voter reports discrepancy.
(4) Provide appropriate punishment for those who cheat, so it’s not worth it to do so.
For example, in Chicago more people voted for Al Gore in 2000 than there were registered
voters! Cheating like this should be investigated and prosecuted at least as vigorously as when
a finger is supposedly found in Wendy’s Chili.

One thing I really dread is a federal takeover of our election process. States are reforming their ballot process just fine, thank you very much, and should receive neither federal mandates nor federal money, in spite of what Jimmy Carter wants.
The state run election is one of the more subtle yet powerful checks and balances in our system of government and besides, the fed is already too large, powerful and wasteful to be taking on more responsibility.
Also, people should not be overly encouraged to vote. I’m very willing to study the issues and candidates and vote for those who don’t feel like it.
Being able to register and vote the same day is a bad idea because it disrupts the carefully maintained list of registered voters needed for accurate elections (see point #1).
It’s an embarrassing fact that one of the components of our Judeo/Christian heritage, honesty, is now so lacking in our culture that the foregoing is necessary. As a result, our voting system, in order to be accurate, must contain redundancy and therefore be expensive to administer. But I’m certainly willing to pay the price for secret, thoroughly accurate elections, and suggest the preceding as a way to achieve needed election reform.

Grimgold

2 Comments

  1. Sure thing Grimmy. “States are reforming their ballot process just fine, thank you very much”

    Would that be Florida or Ohio?

    -Volt-

    Comment by Volt — August 17, 2007 @ 5:03 pm

  2. Hee, hee. Good retort, Volt.
    Please keep pushing, along with me, for honest verifiable elections.
    Grimmy

    Comment by grimgold — August 17, 2007 @ 7:12 pm

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