How to Repair the Voting System: Sec. Debra Bowen's Answer

[kpete]

So, what's the answer? It's actually remarkably simple:

Optical-scan paper ballots that can be filled out using an ordinary black pen. This makes fraud hard, is inexpensive, doesn’t require (limited-in-number) machines that then cause lines to grow long.

Mandatory random hand recount of 1% of ballots, followed by increasing fractions for close races.
Optionally, a limited number of electronic voting machines that print optical scan ballots for those who have bad eyesight.

Really, that's it. There are of course policy issues regarding early voting, and the like, but the actual machinery of the voting itself is straightforward, and we just need to apply the learned wisdom of Sec. Bowen and her team across the country.

much more (links):
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/07/1158596/-How-to-Repair-the-Voting-System-Sec-Debra-Bowen-s-Answer

[msongs]

1. she decertified the e machines made by the big 3 - way to go Ms Bowen nt

[BeeBee]

2. I'm sure glad she became our SOS in California.

These are exactly the reasons I voted for her.

[Brother Buzz]

3. Sounds kinda like what we use in California

Oh, wait a minute.......

[avaistheone1]

5. Yup, she is the California Secretary of State Debra Bowen who make decisions about voting equipment

etc.

[Autumn Colors]

4. How about scanning the ballots twice on different types/brands of optical scanners?

The first on election day and then a second time on a different machine brought in (end of the night on election day or the next day). Any discrepancy between the two counts triggers a full hand-recount of those ballots.

[Luminous Animal]

6. That is the system that we use in San Francisco.

I still would prefer manual voting. The way it used to be, at the closing of the polls, ballots were hand counted at each precinct level and observed by volunteers and the results posted outside the polling place when the count was done.

It was a remarkable transparent system.

[Brother Buzz]

9. Try manual counting a four, five, ten page ballot

[Luminous Animal]

12. I've done it. San Francisco precincts have about 750 eligable voters per...

It is not difficult to hand count the results. The decades that I did it, 80s and 90s, it was the standard and it wasn't difficult.

[Gidney N Cloyd]

7. All good but why not a mandatory count of ALL ballots after they've been scanned?

You can still screw with the scanner tabulation but if the scan count (done mostly for the media) was automatically followed by an official hand count who would bother messing with the tabulating?

[Luminous Animal]

8. Exactly. As I said above, before scanning voting systems in San Francisco,

the ballots were tabulated by hand at the polling place with volunteer observers and the results posted outside the polling place. Precinct captains would collect that info from each polling place within their precinct and be able to match that with the "official" data.

[Michigan Alum]

10. We had those but then it didn't verify how you voted on the screen or by a receipt.

They need to have machines that will give you a receipt. Since I live in Florida, it made me very, very nervous because we are a banana republic down here. Other than that, it worked well in our polling place.

[magellan]

11. Printing ballots for each voter & filling in the ovals carefully takes time, creates lines

This is the system my entire state, FL, used this year. It took 10 minutes to complete my ballot, and I already knew exactly how I was going to vote on everything. Then the scanner kept rejecting my ballot - another couple of minutes to scan every sheet successfully. It didn't instill confidence in me that it was reading my choices correctly. I was only happy we got there early, before the real early voting lines started forming.

Unless more polling stations are provided and early voting hours are extended, this is a recipe for backlogs in heavily populated districts like we saw in Miami/Dade.

Also, I don't see any mention of ensuring the tabulators can't be hacked or otherwise messed with.

[librechik]

13. more important to REMOVE PARTISAN HACKS from the vote-counting process

they're the ones who "fix" the electronic vote machines and make sure certain neighborhoods don't get enough resources while other neighborhoods have too much (voting machines, ballots etc)

From now on State Secretaries of State can't also run the Republican Campaign apparatus. This happens over and over, in state after state, it's WRONG.

(I never heard of a partisan Democrat being allowed to run an entire state's voting programs, so possibly only a problem for the Repugs. Even Debra Bowen was a moderate civil service type, not an Dem operative )

Then what Secretary Bowen is suggesting might work.