davidwr's Journal: Ballot ideas 9/6/06

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Ballot ideas 9/6/06

Goal:
1) voting by handicapped voters with minimal assistance
2) voter-verified audit trail
3) cost-reduced versions available where needed
4) quick count available to the press within minutes

4 machines handle ballots, only 1 of which is needed if goas 1, 2, and 4 are not required.

Machine 1 is a master vote counter at county headquarters. This machine makes the official count and is required. In large counties more than one machine can work together. Machines do not have to be co-located.

Machine 2 is a printed-ballot scanner. At least one of these should be present at each voting location. This machine accepts the printed, marked ballots, tabulates them, and faxes the results to county headquarters as soon as the poll closes. More than one of these is allowed per precinct. If none are allowed, "instant results" will not be available and the opportunity to catch tampering of ballots en route to county headquarters is diminished.

Machine 3 is a ballot-marking machine. This is similar to an "e-ballot" machine but it is NOT an official voting machine. It is simply a machine that takes the voter's on-screen selection and prints it to a ballot, which the voter then drops into the printed-ballot scanner or into a traditional ballot box for later counting.
If this machine does not exist, the voter can mark the ballot by hand using a pen.
At least one machine should be at each precinct to meet the requirements of the Help America Vote Act.

Machine 4 is a ballot-verification machine. This machine is purely for the convenience of the voter and plays no role in the actual voting. A voter puts a marked ballot in this machine and it prints a report of what votes were cast. This can help a voter verify his hand-marked ballot was marked correctly and ask for a new ballot if it was not. This machine should use identical technology as the master vote counter for best results.

At any time before the voter puts the marked ballot in the printed-ballot scanner or traditional ballot box, he can "spoil" the ballot and vote again.

Counties with low budgets need only purchase a master vote counter and ballots and marking pens that are compatible with this hardware, something many counties have done for decades.

Counties with extremely small populations can and probably should continue to use hand-counted paper ballots, possibly with the assistance of a machine similar to machine 3 to comply with the Help America Voters Act law.

Fraud and error detection:

If available, the quick-count is compared to the master-count for that ballot box. Discrepancies that affect the outcome of any election are investigated.
A small random sample of precincts is machine-counted on a machine with different technology and vendor, OR is hand-counted.
A larger random sample of precincts, preferably over 25%, is statistically sampled. A statistical sample of ballots is counted by hand or using a machine with different technology and vendor than the master counter. If the actual counts and statistical sample are significantly different, the entire precinct is recounted. Any complete-count discrepancies that affect the outcome of any election are investigated.
Discrepancies that do not affect the outcome of an election should be investigated if fraud, equipment failure, correctable human error, or another failure is suspected. Minor variations such as seemingly-random +/- 1 vote discrepancies need not be investigated unless they affect an outcome, fraud is suspected, or fixing the underlying problem could avoid real problems in the future.