Reply #3: Paper Ballots, not just a paper trail [View All]

[mackdaddy]

I agree, going with human readable paper ballots is the surest way to go.

If it does have to be done on a computer I really like the approach that the "Open Voting Consortium" http://www.openvotingconsortium.org/ is using.

They are working on an internationally usable system which has facilities for alternate languages and special needs voters built in. It is an open source set of programs which can be run on standard PC's with a printer and a bar code reader.

One computer is used to do the on-screen candidate selection which prevents over votes, and flags under votes. Once the voter is satisfied with their choices it prints a plain text ballot, with standard bar codes encoding the machine readable version of the ballot. The voter verifies the paper ballot, and then submits it for scanning into the tabulator, and the final locked storage box. The ballot scan is verified on screen, and can be automatically read back via a computer voice for visually impaired voters.

The ballot can always be hand re-counted, and the voting machinery is cheap and readily available and upgradeable.

Someone could still screw with the bar code encoding or tabulator reading of the bar code, but the program does have some built in integrity checks.

They have a neat on line simulation of the process to try out a sample voting session, and you can print out your sample ballot.

Of course the only way I could see our crooked politicians in DC going for this is if the software would run on the crap hardware Diebold and ESS has already foisted on so many counties.