The question has come up, often of late, about the current state of voting technology and whether or not it is possible to use computers or other modern technological means to improve the process for voters and the accuracy for voting officials...

In my view, it *is* possible for technology to make voting better-- but the right group of someones needs to get together to define the word "better", better.

The problem is that there are competing groups that are pushing for voting technology reform and nearly all of them have their own agenda and an intense desire for secrecy and the ability to tamper with the results-- they won't tell you that out in the open of course.

So the question really is, how can you make voting "better" for the people who have to do it-- i.e. "the public"-- and for the people who have to count it, "the appointed officials", and to do it in such a way that its dependable, reliable, repeatable, and provable (verifiable). And if possible, make it easy to administer and oversee and maybe "paperless".

Personally I don't see any way to make it "paperless" and still permit all of the various constituents to have confidence in the system. And confidence is very important in a voting scheme, as we've seen in the last several Presidential elections. Without it, it is very easy for voters to become factionalized and to feel marginalized by the system.

However, getting back to what makes "better", better-- in order to create a fair, demonstrable, verifiable, reliable voting system, the effort needs to focus on the following items:


What an Assisted-Voting Machine Must Do:

1. Developing a system that is easy (or easier) to use by the voting public. Which include people who are technologically savvy along with people who are not. People who implicitly trust "technology" and those who emphatically do not. People who understand the issues and who the candidates are on the ballet, and those who don't have a clue. People who can follow directions and a lot that cannot. People who are tall enough to see over the top of the machine, and those who cannot (think "elderly"). People who can reliably operate the controls of the machine-- be it a pencil, punch, lever or button-- and those who cannot (again, think "elderly").  People who care and people who could give a flip. Oh, and people who would like to purposely "rig" the election even if its just "one vote" for whatever reason they might have, including none.

2. The system must produce a visible, independent, permanent product that can be unambiguously tallied, re-tallied, and re-tallied. There must be some sort of identification number assigned to the record-- perhaps just a sequential number-- so that it can be easily ascertained whether or not there are missing votes. Ideally, there ought to be some sort of token given to the voter that somehow corresponds with their vote and unambiguously records their intent, although it may be obscured to protect their anonymity. However, the algorithm to reveal the information should be public and the voter should have the right and privilege to compare their ticket with their vote at any time after the fact to ensure that they do in fact match up.

3. The product of the voting machine-- the "voted" ballot-- should be marked clearly, unambiguously, and in such a manner that it cannot be "re-cast" at a later point. This would imply the physical destruction of some element, such as physically punching a hole through a paper ballot, or similar. And the intended vote should be made in such a manner that a "reasonable" and "reasonably-informed" person can visually inspect their ballot for accuracy before filing. Ideally comparing it with the ticket they receive as a check. In addition to unambiguously marking the intent of the ballot, the item of the ballot should be recorded beside the mark as an additional verification procedure. That way before the ballot is submitted, the voter has one last opportunity to inspect the literal ballot they are about to submit to verify that it says what they intend for it to say.

4. It is permissible for the ballot to be marked in some machine-readable manner to speed up the process of tallying the votes. However, the marking used must also be easily deciphered by humans, and must never be relied upon versus a full manual count. The marking must only be there for the convenience of counting, but not to replace the human element involved in the counting, in the event of a dispute or discrepancy. The information recorded in the machine-readable portion must only contain information that is already visible in the remaining portion of the human-readable ballot submitted.

5. The mechanism selected must be viable in a non-technologically enhanced environment. Not everybody can make it to the polls on the proscribed date. Some people vote early. Some people vote from afar. In some cases, power-outage for instance, the voting machines themselves may be rendered inoperable and unable to assist the voter. Whatever the balloting method chosen, it should operate in fundamentally the same manner when applied manually for each of these constituencies and situations. Perhaps reverting to a method employing the old Number 2 pencil.


*bonus suggestions*

6. The final voted ballot should be deposited in a container designed so its contents are visible but illegible-- i.e. "blurred". This will permit everyone involved in the voting process to physically see with their own eyes that the ballot was properly submitted and not tampered with prior to collection.

7. The collection container should ideally have a continuously-operating camera coupled with a location device (GPS), and ultimately connected to the Internet to independently document its facility, and to permit interested observers from (literally) anywhere to view and follow its operation, collection, storage-in-transit, and ultimate opening by the election committee designated with the task of tallying the votes.

8. The entire tallying procedure should be viewed by a continuously-running camera, and ultimately connected to the Internet, so that any interested observer can view and verify that the process of tallying the votes is conducted in a free and fair manner.


What an Assisted-Voting Machine Must *NOT* Do:

1. The voting machine must *not* obscure the details of the vote, except to protect the voter's identity and vote from public observation and recording.

2. The voting machine must *not* keep an internal tally of the votes, nor be relied upon to establish the actual vote cast by the voter. The vote should be cast and recorded by a second, independent and independently verifiable manner, such as a paper ballot, that the voter can personally review for accuracy prior to its submittal.

3. The voting machine must *not* be the only display of the ballot. There should be a poster-sized ballot posted on both the outside and inside of the voting area, which should correspond to anything displayed 0n the screen, as well as reproduced on the actual recorded vote ballot, and the voter should be handed a personal copy of the ballot prior to entering the voting area to vote. The personal copy may then be recovered after the vote and given to the next voter in line. Thus the voter would have multiple opportunities to examine the ballot prior to voting, and also the ability to verify that anything displayed by the machine or recorded on the actual vote ballot is correct.