Random election mechanics thought

[dmaze]

The first post-election edition of the RISKS digest had remarkably little to say: there was an article that mostly just summarized things that have been reported widely through my livejournal friends list and an article about the New York Times' "voters' rights" article. This made me think a little about the local system, though. In Somerville I walk into the polling place, give them my name and street address (but no ID), and get marked off the list. I fill in a paper ballot, get marked off a second list, and feed it through a machine. I can entirely envision how the machine works, and could probably build my own with a lot of effort and some repressed memories from 6.270. If it breaks, there's still this big bin of ballots that we can go back and hand-count later.

This system works. The ballot is clear, the mechanic is obvious, there's no pesky uncertified software or "smart cards", you can double-check that the automation works. It's not shiny -- but a stable democracy isn't really about shiny, it demands confidence in a voting system, which from what I've seen the shiny just doesn't give.

Comments

[avacon.livejournal.com]

Ironically, the current indications of major election fraud seem
to be focused around these Optical Scanner machines.
The hard part may be getting people to take it seriously
and go look in the bins. Here's a good summary
of this particular set of issues:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/110804Z.shtml

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

Ah, but at least it is physically possible!

[calling-to-deep.livejournal.com]

That makes me want to cry. Not that I believe it could be true (It might be, but I'd need to see more corroborating evidence) but because the Diebold system is so astoundingly ridiculous and yet, people trust it.

[76trombones.livejournal.com]

*blink*

Where'd my comp.risks go? Perhaps I should get it back now, once I remember how, but I do wonder what else I lost...