Optiscan Paper Ballots in 2008

[kster]

I simply don't understand what's the matter with pencil and paper. You fill in box, you slap it on a scanner, it records the vote as it stuffs the paper into a lockbox.

Immediately after the election, the result is known. That night at the polling place, all the paper ballots are counted by humans. The results should correlate with the vote machine record.

:)

[stillcool]

1. so simple, so easy...

I think like 14 states already do that, have a standard audit after every election. My state is not one of them. I've written letters, made phone calls, but it is not an 'issue'...yet. With all the evidence of vulnerabilities to electronic tabulations, and with paper ballots right there waiting to be audited, the lack of willingness to adopt a simple corrective measure is mind boggling. The choice is to ignore it, until such time as enough people demand that it not be ignored.

[kster]

4. Simple indeed

why let our ballot count be secured by a hand full of mathematicians statisticians and vendors.

When we can count and secure our own ballot count, the old fashion way. If a group of citizens want to make sure that the machine total is correct, before the ballots leave the polling place we should not try to prevent them from hand counting all the ballots, we should applaud them for wanting to secure the secret electronic ballot count.

[Wilms]

5. Yes. It is very simple.

Just click this link and be kind enough to respond to Liam_Laddie's thoughtful post that's addressed to you.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=post&forum=203&topic_id=496913&mesg_id=496941

[kster]

16. I had no idea you where on "liam_laddie" watch

:rofl:

here you go...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x496913#497005

[Wilms]

17. Actually, I was just encouraging the conversation.

:shrug:

[DCKit]

2. Simple Optical Scan/Counting Machines are Teh Bomb.

Especially considering that paper records can be audited at any time.

Once programmable chips, memory and other complexities are added (by a Republican vendor), the results will always be suspect.

[liam_laddie]

3. Ballot complexity factor...

My experience in researching how BoE's go about the business of organizing elections has led me to know that it's a much more complicated process than many realize. For instance, in Hamilton County, Ohio (Cincinnati) where I reside, there are (49) separate political "subdivisions" - cities, townships, villages, unincorporated areas. These are overlapped with school districts, taxing zones, local issues, etc.; in a quadrennial year, this matrix results in over 500 or more distinctly different ballot layouts. This is a county of about 820,000, not large by any measure. Add in multi-lingual requirements and it
increases the distinctly different ballot forms needed.

The only method I can see to make hand-counted paper ballots work, is to use them for only the presidential and senate races. All others - federal and state House races, which districts overlap all sorts of political subdivisions, and the local races - municipal, etc. would remain in the "machine-assisted" mode, whether punch card, opscan, etc. In other words, two separate ballot forms, perhaps a perforated design to be separated at the precinct scanner. I simply don't see how a Board could organize enough staff or volunteers, adequately overseen, to hand-count and tabulate one complex ballot form for all the races/issues. I fully agree that transparency and accuracy are much more important than the media-driven meme for instant results.

Maybe I'm missing some other obvious solution? Thoughts?

[Ellipsis]

6. IMO you're right on with this post.

Hand count President, senate, and congress. Do what you will with the rest provided there is a viable random audit process in place.

[mopinko]

8. back in the day in chicago

although there was a theoretical plan to have separate counting judges, they never did. i personally cannot imagine being in the polling place at 5 am, work till 7 pm, then count till 2 am like they did in many elections.
it would be great to have each polling place hand count a randomly chosen race in every precinct, tho. roll a couple of dice, draw straws, something so that it is absolutely random. :shrug:

[Ellipsis]

9. It's a shame more people don't take the time to help in out in election process

And may I first say thanks for your service in that regard.


The apathy amazes me in (thou this may not be as true as it once was given the what we've lived through since 2000) how many people just don't vote, or just don't care who wins, let alone give a damn on how and why the votes get counted the way they do.

Also... the whole instant gratification (chain of custody issue aside) in the need for same day tallies is another thing that baffles me. What's the rush?

Shake the dice, draw it out of a hat, play bingo it doesn't matter, as you say, as long a it's truly random and at an adequate percentage. It can be simple without cost and little effort.


Man/womenpower that's the bottleneck. There needs to be an incentive to get more people involved ...like a break on their taxes for instance.

[mopinko]

13. pick a card.

manpower, tho, you may have something there. the people who need the money are often underemployed for a reason. folks that don't need the money might be happier for the write-off.

[liam_laddie]

10. Congressional districts...

Not possible to utilize one ballot for House races; in Ohio, we have 18 Reps in DC, each of course representing a district (about 635k folks.) That would mean 18 different ballots with just the rep race for that particular district.
The Prez and Senate races are state-wide, thus requiring no district-by-district breakout. Perhaps state-wide issues could be included on this Prez/Senate "tear-off" section of the form. All other races and issues must be designed for each *very* local situation. As I said upthread, when ya really dig into the realities, there's no easy answer to designing ballots.
To add another factor which I support, we need some form of proportional representation; there are several voting methods superior to the winner-takes-all so prevalent in the USA. These methods do not lend themselves very easily to hand-counts, SFAIK. Unless it's just one race. Most foreign election ballots are much simpler than our puzzles...
And we sure as hell need random, transparent, 10% minimum audits!

[Ellipsis]

11. Respectfully disagree

While it may be wishful thinking the puzzle is not that complex.

Not a tear off ballot... a separate ballot.

A pdf document starting at the national level passed down to each congressional district, filled in by the district, downloaded by the precinct and printed in house on commonly available toner based consumer printers with appropriate duty cycle (given the size of the precinct), would work very well.

[Wilms]

7. I agree sortof.

There are still Hand Counted jurisdiction. There were even more prior to HAVA, or should I say the misinterpretation of HAVA. Why should those places switch to machines.

A big argument in favor of Optical Scan has been for the large cities (which I have a hard time understanding) and for complex ballots, as you describe.

I live where we fall into both those catagories...except this past Tuesday. The primary contest and seven ballot initiatives was all that was involved. Seems to me that could have been Hand Counted. So perhaps, machines should be considered (with statistically significant audits) on an as needed basis, rather than the other way around.

[mopinko]

12. big cities have a hard time finding enough poll workers

chicago has 50 wards. each ward has 40-50 precincts, times 5 judges. that's why we never had the allowed counting judges. just not enough people to go around, and to pay. shit, we get a whole $150 for the 16 hour day. if you do some extra work, you can get a whole nother $75. even at that, it costs a freakin' lot of money.

[Wilms]

15. I don't deny the difficulty staffing polls.

And that's even as I don't buy the argument of the number of polls in a large city being a problem. You need x number of poll workers for x number of voters regardless if it's an urban or rural area.

I wonder how NH does it.

And I'm concerned with reports of senior citizens now declining to work at polls because they don't want to deal with e-voting equipment. I don't know if that's just about touchscreens, e-poll books, OpScan, or even ballot markers.

[mopinko]

18. this is real, and sad, i agree.

part of it is just the stupid size and clumsiness of the damn things. there is no reason in hell for them to be any bigger or clumsier than a normal laptop. but they are a major pain to deal with. it is just insane.
i count this as one more casualty of the raygun years, really. back in the day when mom's could stay home with their kids an awful lot of important civic work was done by these volunteers. i always suspected it was part of the plan to get rid of these trouble makers by making them get jobs.

[kster]

14. Heres a thought, skip to 5:40

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMGIjChINA

[gracie76]

19. Optiscan paper ballots

kster is absolutely right....paper ballots, run through the
scanner and, after polls have closed, counted one by one by
human beings, with the public watching, if public
representatives or party or candidate representatives wish to
observe.  Yes, it will take time, but so what.  Better to get
it right than to get it quickly and SNAFU-ed.  There IS a
problem with getting sufficient people to cover the
precincts/polling stations....and the day is very long,
usually from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. or thereabouts  (and that's
WITHOUT doing any hand counting at the precinct level).
Ballots get turned in to the central tabulating facility and,
IF THERE IS A DIFFERENCE  (of more than a few votes) between
the hand-count results and the scanner-recorded results, then
the staff at the central tabulating facility gets to take
another whack at it.
BUT WHY NOT AVOID THE WHOLE MESS AND VOTE BY MAIL????ALL
ABSENTEE.....MAILED IN AND COUNTED BY HAND AT THE OFFICE OF
THE REGISTRAR OF VOTERS OR WHEREVER IT WORKS/IS LEGAL....WITH
MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC AT LARGE WATCHING.  NO ELECTRONIC
EQUIPMENT TO MALFUNCTION, OR TO BE MANIPULATED BY EVIL-DOERS. 
If citizens don't trust the mail service, they can drop their
ballots off in person on election day. This system eliminates
the need of finding and paying for and staffing many, many
polling places, the cost of all the supplies necessary, the
cost of paying the clerks and the inspectors.  This would also
ensure that one's vote remained private.  No one shouting out
to the clerk to give this or that person a DEMOCRAT or 
REPUBLICAN ballot------------and when they told the clerk to
give me a REPUBLICAN ballot, I screeched NO WAY....CHECK THAT
LIST, I'M A DEMOCRAT!  (SO MUCH FOR MY
PRIVACY.................)