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At the polls
4 November 2008 12:18
I seem to have timed my arrival at the polling place well this morning. There was a crowd leaving, and many driving in behind me, but I didn't have much of a wait. I noticed someone collecting exit polls outside the building, and there were folks filling out the exit poll forms. Ahead of me were, before the main voting area, were three or four people. One or two confirmed their ward and precinct and went into the main area right away. The older couple ahead of me I got to pass as they would be taking time with registering.
I went in and found the station for my ward and precinct, signed the book, got the ballot and waiting for the few folks ahead of me in line to get an open booth. It was only a few minutes and then I took a booth that had just been vacated. I think I spent more time filling out and double-checking the ballot than doing anything else. Finished, I left the booth and fed the ballot into a scanner and got the little "I voted" sticker.
When I left the situation had changed. Now there was not only a line, but it ran down the hall and out the door. I stopped for a bit to fill out the exit poll (I gave the real answers, though I did think about reporting that I'd written in Brian Moore and Stewart Alexander.) and was then on my way, at least after negotiating the parking lot traffic.
It looked like a heavy turn-out just before I arrived and just after I voted. When I left the parking lot there were many cars coming in. It wasn't just new young voters registering, but older folks as well as mentioned above.
Not voting today.
8 November 2005 16:35Civic irresponsibility? No. It's just that there is nothing to vote on where I live, so there is no voting. The nearest vote to me is a school district vote in western Martin County, and I'm not in that district.
I voted last week. The results of the election have been cussed and discussed to excess already. But there are some aspects of the voting process that are troublesome.
When I registered to vote, some time ago, I had to show photo ID to prove that I was who I said I was. This makes sense.
When I went to vote I did not need to show any ID. This does not make sense. I need to show ID to cash a check, or to buy alcohol, or to travel on a commercial airline, yet to vote I merely need to sign my name on the right line on the right paper. While that signature can be checked, it would be the case after the vote was cast. It's enough to come after me later if I for some reason should not have voted, but not enough to keep me from voting if I should not.
The ballot itself was a fill-in-the-oval paper meant to be scanned for a machine count. I was given a pen to use to fill it out, so the ballot could not be too readily altered. This is good. It allows for a fast counting of votes, but also leaves a paper hardcopy of the ballot.
Other than the paper-scanning counting device, I did not encounter any voting machinery. There are legitimate concerns with touch-screen machines. Ideally the software source for such machines would be visible to the public so anyone could inspect it. One state (Nevada?) insisted that such machines also generate a paper ballot that matched the voter's screen selections. The voter's selections would not be recognized until he had accepted the paper ballot as correct. The paper ballot was behind a clear barrier and would get stored if accepted. (I do wonder what happened to ballots that were not accepted by the voter). Overall, this seems like a near ideal solution to touch-screen voting. It allows fast counting of votes but also generates a verified paper ballot that would be hard to alter and would be available for any re-counting that might be needed.
I got a little "I voted" sticker to show off that I'd voted. This is nice, and perhaps encourages others who see it to also go vote. But it's not as useful as it can be. While it may seem awkward or even third world, a stamp of indelible ink on my hand would be more useful to poll workers - they could tell in an instant if I'd already voted and keep me from voting more than once if were to try it (no, I didn't try it). While imperfect (those who cast absentee ballots would not be marked), it would neatly and simply nearly eliminate claims of multiple voting by people. Between that and a proper identification requirement, I expect many questions of voter fraud would be eliminated.
None of these ideas are new or unique, save perhaps the addition to the touch-screen machines. I just think they're good ideas that ought to be put into place in order to improve things.
I got up an hour early to get to the polls nice and early. I got there a bit after I'd planned, about 10 minutes early. The hallway at the Knights of Columbus hall was already fairly crowded, but there was just enough room for a few more folks to wait inside. More were soon waiting in the entryway, and it wasn't much longer that the line ran outside.
At 7:00, things opened and the line shortened quite fast as it was dividing between four wards of two precincts each. Despite my being back in the line, I was the first to get to the place for my precinct and had no problems. When I'd finished, the room was fairly crowded, but there were no more lines in the hall. Also, there was a fair amount of traffic (well, by Fairmont standards) but not jammed up at all. I was out of the parking lot and driving back home by 7:15.
Okkay, time for another post, with a very different subject.
The above lines are true for things other than unix. There have been a number of articles regarding the problems of voting machines and, indeed, almost any hidden electronic or even mechanical part to the voting process. Anything of the mechanism that is hidden is suspect. That which is hidden can be either quietly failing or have been set to commit fraud outright.
Various solutions have been suggested, from open source software to random checks to voter receipts. None quite manages to be satisfactory. Open source software takes time to be inspected. Random checks will not find every flaw - though they may scare manufacturers into being quite careful. Voter receipts are an invitation to disaster: "Show up with your receipt for my candidate and..."
What's needed, and even seen as needed, is a proper audit trail from vote cast to vote counted to election result. This must include the ability to re-count votes, and should be hard to spoof or at least make it easy to detect an attempt at illegally influencing election results. This audit trail has been called a paper trail, since that has worked in several places, even for things other than elections.
There are low-tech pen-and-paper ballots. These can slow to count, and to recount. They are bulky and take up space to store and are heavy things to ship. All that, however, makes them ideal. The bulk means it'd be hard for someone to 'stuff the ballot box' without detection. They've been around for some time. That means they're a proven system. They are their own paper trail, so there's no need to invent a new one. No voting machine parts or programming are needed that can be hidden.
Paper and ink ballots aren't perfect and there is still a possibility of them being manipulated. They do, however, tend to have a fairly large disadvantage for those who would tamper them: they require physical evidence be left behind or disposed of.
So they're a bit slow. Big deal. Presidential elections are held in early November, swearing in is done in late January. Each precinct does its own count. Counting all the votes is a big job, but it's distributed big job - which means its really many small jobs.
The problem of how to conduct a vote has been solved. There's no need to solve it again, poorly, and break a working system.
