Anyone who tries to "modernize" or change something as simple and straightforward as "Take a ballot, tick your preferences, and place in the ballot box for counting" is up to no good.
That's not how voting is done. Before you take a ballot there are some checks to get past first. Ie, make sure you name is on the list of registered voters for that polling location, then sign the register, in some places the signature may be checked but not always. If this stuff doesn't line up you can still get a provisional ballot for most states in the US, which is treated similarly to a mail-in ballot (signature is checked by hand and is cross checked to make sure the person with that name and addre
The reason paper voting is safer is not that you can't defraud the system you can, easily, they are not handwriting experts checking your signature, or checking your id for fakes. It is good because no single person can perform a fraud that can have any significant effect on the election. I would need a mass conspiracy in order to carry out anything with any real impact.
That's why all these attempts at voting machines really annoy me. The only way of making elections easier for counting purposes is to centralise and consolidate the votes, which make it easier to attack.
The only system I can think of with allowing a simplified counting system, for immediate results, would be that the voting machine prints out your intended ballot which you still submit to a ballot box. The printer can keep a log to immediately release once voting has closed, but the paper ballots are what d
Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone who tries to "modernize" or change something as simple and straightforward as "Take a ballot, tick your preferences, and place in the ballot box for counting" is up to no good.
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That's not how voting is done. Before you take a ballot there are some checks to get past first. Ie, make sure you name is on the list of registered voters for that polling location, then sign the register, in some places the signature may be checked but not always. If this stuff doesn't line up you can still get a provisional ballot for most states in the US, which is treated similarly to a mail-in ballot (signature is checked by hand and is cross checked to make sure the person with that name and addre
Re:Duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason paper voting is safer is not that you can't defraud the system you can, easily, they are not handwriting experts checking your signature, or checking your id for fakes. It is good because no single person can perform a fraud that can have any significant effect on the election. I would need a mass conspiracy in order to carry out anything with any real impact.
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Yup, you can fake a signature but you can't fake a signature en-masse. Or in other words, you can do a retail attack but not a wholesale attack.
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That's why all these attempts at voting machines really annoy me. The only way of making elections easier for counting purposes is to centralise and consolidate the votes, which make it easier to attack.
The only system I can think of with allowing a simplified counting system, for immediate results, would be that the voting machine prints out your intended ballot which you still submit to a ballot box. The printer can keep a log to immediately release once voting has closed, but the paper ballots are what d
Re: (Score:2)
I would need a mass conspiracy in order to carry out anything with any real impact.
Like the way that, until recently in the South, votes from black people were just thrown away.