Comment Simple & Logical (Score 1) 191
Canada manages to have a paper-only voting system, and produces all their results within a few hours, and has a lot fewer voting issues. then again, one of the secrets is to vote for only one thing - we don't elect dog-catchers and judges and 10 levels of governemt at the same time...
The simple and obvious vote system would be this:
Vote electronically. Whatever, touch screens. When all is settled, print out a final ballot- on a piece of paper, the size of an old computer punch card. It would be printed with both the vote choices (text) and an easily-scanned bar code. For good measure, it would have some form of hash-encrypted key with checksum, machine, serial number, approximate tim,e of voting, etc. You could even print off a matching copy for the voter to take home. (I would also allow the voter to print off "fake" voter receipts, so if they are selling their vote, they could produce whatever receipt for show that they wanted - but not have to actually vote that way. Unless the vote buyer had access to the encoded ballots, he would not be able to tell if the receipt was really for a final vote.)
If you could make that code secure, then maybe add the exact time of voting so individual ballots could be disallowed if the voter were deemed fraudulent; as long as it's not easy to determine who voted how, without a very secret code.
So now, you have a series of bar coded (easily machine-read) paper ballots. The text names also appear, so the voter can verify.
I'm sure in the cases where machine code fudging is suspected, a scanner program could be written to compare text to bar code to ensure no hanky-panky was happening. Also, you could build sorting machines to sort ballots into slots (like the old card sorters) based on a vote value. A quick perusal of any stack ("these should all read 'GWB'...") would show whether any text-to-code mismatch was being performed.
Voters of questionable credentials could still vote,but their ballots would be segregated and serial-numbered (with a hidden code) so that they could be permitted or denied based on challenges - sort of like sealing your vote in an envelope and tossing it in the count when the case is won...
The down side? Every voting place would need a functional laser (3 for good measure) a huge supply of paper and some fancy computers and bar-code readers.
The simple and obvious vote system would be this:
Vote electronically. Whatever, touch screens. When all is settled, print out a final ballot- on a piece of paper, the size of an old computer punch card. It would be printed with both the vote choices (text) and an easily-scanned bar code. For good measure, it would have some form of hash-encrypted key with checksum, machine, serial number, approximate tim,e of voting, etc. You could even print off a matching copy for the voter to take home. (I would also allow the voter to print off "fake" voter receipts, so if they are selling their vote, they could produce whatever receipt for show that they wanted - but not have to actually vote that way. Unless the vote buyer had access to the encoded ballots, he would not be able to tell if the receipt was really for a final vote.)
If you could make that code secure, then maybe add the exact time of voting so individual ballots could be disallowed if the voter were deemed fraudulent; as long as it's not easy to determine who voted how, without a very secret code.
So now, you have a series of bar coded (easily machine-read) paper ballots. The text names also appear, so the voter can verify.
I'm sure in the cases where machine code fudging is suspected, a scanner program could be written to compare text to bar code to ensure no hanky-panky was happening. Also, you could build sorting machines to sort ballots into slots (like the old card sorters) based on a vote value. A quick perusal of any stack ("these should all read 'GWB'...") would show whether any text-to-code mismatch was being performed.
Voters of questionable credentials could still vote,but their ballots would be segregated and serial-numbered (with a hidden code) so that they could be permitted or denied based on challenges - sort of like sealing your vote in an envelope and tossing it in the count when the case is won...
The down side? Every voting place would need a functional laser (3 for good measure) a huge supply of paper and some fancy computers and bar-code readers.
