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Health & Fitness

Paper Ballots as Part of a High Tech Election

Voting machines are solely for the luxury of the poll workers. They tally the results at the end of the night by reading a printout from data cartridges. THERE IS NO PAPER TRAIL AUDIT.

The brouhaha over the dismissal of Joe Passarella as Montgomery County’s Director of Voter Services opens up a window of opportunity.  I have known Joe for the better part of 2 decades and he did a good job and was a fair adjudicator of the election process.  (I am saying that as a Democratic Committeeperson.)

One of the few places Joe and I disagreed was on voting machines.  He loved them.  I hate them.

Voting machines are solely for the luxury of the poll workers.  They tally the results at the end of the night by reading a printout from data cartridges.  There is no paper trail audit.  Let me repeat that –

THERE IS NO PAPER TRAIL AUDIT.

I do not have a great deal of confidence in the results generated by our machines.  There are studies about how machines like ours can easily be hacked (Link: http://www.salon.com/2011/09/27/votinghack/).

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It is time to think outside the box and come up with a new method of voting that can allow for a paper trail and ease of access.

At the end of the day we need an accurate count that is easy to verify and easy to cast.

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Since we have a Voter Id Law that requires a Standard Id to vote – let’s take advantage of that.  There are now scanners that can be attached to cell phones to take credit card information.  Why not use that technology to check in voters?  When you arrive at the polls you present your state issued id to the clerk.  They verify it is you via looking at the picture.  The card is scanned and a transaction is sent to the County Election Board where you are marked as present.

The clerk hands you a paper ballot and you use a pen to fill out your preferences at a privacy booth.  (Actually a recycled cardboard partition set on a table to make sure no one is peeking at your vote.)  When you are done filling out the ballot you deposit the ballot in a thing called a BALLOT BOX.

At the end of the night the ballot box is opened and the ballots are arranged front side up to be fed into a scanner (actually we could use readily available All in One printers sold at office supply stores).  Scanning software can handle the process of totaling the votes.  At this point we use the internet capabilities of the All in One Printer to upload the results to the County Office of Voter Services.  The beauty of this is that even if there is a breach of internet security – we still can go back to the paper ballots to verification.

Exceptions and other Bonuses:

At the start of Election Day each poll will be supplied with a batch of pre-printed ballots.  If they run out, the polling place will have the ability to print more (the scanner is a printer – remember).  In fact, since the printers are connected to the county offices, customized ballots can be generated for voters who work at locations far from home.  For instance, if you live in Lower Merion and work in Upper Providence you could go to a poll local to your workplace in the county, check in as a non-resident voter and have a custom ballot printed for you at the polling place.  You could vote there.  Long line at your home poll?  Go to the one in the next neighborhood.

If a voter fills out an absentee ballot and shows up at another poll, the absentee ballot can be flagged for removal at the end of the night.

Campaign workers would be relieved of sitting in polling places taking attendance.  Since each voter is checking in with the county when they vote (remember they are checking in with an internet swipe) a file containing the voters who have not exercised their franchise can be generated.  That file can be created at 12 noon and 4 pm so that campaigns can make reminder phone calls to their folks.

Since we would no longer need the large machines to vote with, the main lock point in the voting process will be removed.  Instead of waiting for a machine, voters would be waiting for a privacy booth that would essentially be cardboard partitions on a work table at the polling place.  A longer line just means setting up another table with cardboard partitions.  At the end of the night after the initial scan of the ballots, the ballots are sealed.  Those sealed ballots, the All in One Printer and the smart phone device are returned to the county warehouse.  The ballots are isolated and rescanned for a secondary count after the election.  It is possible to actually do a hand count for really tight races.

The equipment is a lot smaller than the voting machines so it will take a lot less space for storage.  In fact, instead of having a hauler deliver and pick up the voting equipment - the Judge of Elections can take the equipment with them to the warehouse when they drop off the ballots - yet another savings to the taxpayers. 

The biggest problem may be finding new homes for old voting machines…

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