Protecting the Electoral Process

[whollygoats]

Our state is under attack. That seems clear to me.

I have never trusted 'electronic voting machines', nor 'voting machines', for that matter. I tend to trust the old paper ballot, filled out in a standing poll, at a local polling station staffed by the intrepid women of the League of Women Voters, the protectors and voluntary functionaries of much of the election system. They signed you in, handed you your ballot, directed you to open voting booths, directed you to where you placed your ballot in the locked ballot box, and announced aloud that you had voted, while a colleague checked you off as having cast your ballot.

That's all gone now. Even for me. Now, my home is my polling station and I mail my ballot in. It's still paper, but it is counted by machines. The thing is, there is a paper record if anybody wants to count it.

Am I too paranoid?

I think I'd like to see the resurrection of the League of Women Voters. They were always a welcome presence at the polls.

 

[whollygoats]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

 

[SimpleDon]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

Or moving it to Sunday, like it is in most countries.

 

[Horatio Parker]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

Yes.

I remember a William Safire column years ago listing umpteen ways to improve voter turnout. Giving them time off work to do so was conspicuously absent.

 

[Elixir]

Our state is under attack. That seems clear to me.

I have never trusted 'electronic voting machines', nor 'voting machines', for that matter. I tend to trust the old paper ballot, filled out in a standing poll, at a local polling station staffed by the intrepid women of the League of Women Voters, the protectors and voluntary functionaries of much of the election system. They signed you in, handed you your ballot, directed you to open voting booths, directed you to where you placed your ballot in the locked ballot box, and announced aloud that you had voted, while a colleague checked you off as having cast your ballot.

That's all gone now. Even for me. Now, my home is my polling station and I mail my ballot in. It's still paper, but it is counted by machines. The thing is, there is a paper record if anybody wants to count it.

Am I too paranoid?

I think I'd like to see the resurrection of the League of Women Voters. They were always a welcome presence at the polls.

IMHO you're not being too paranoid at all. Republicans in congress are conspiring with Russians to bend or break our electoral system any way they can. $120m sits in a DoS account, earmarked for fighting Russian interference. I have more in my thin wallet than they've spent.
If they won't hold social media giants' feet to the fire, the least they could do would be to give us real ballots.

 

[bilby]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

Or moving it to Sunday, like it is in most countries.

Is it?

It's always on a Saturday here; IIRC in the UK it's always a Thursday.

I agree that it's best if it isn't on a workday; And I also agree that the purported benefits of voting machines and electronic counting are VASTLY outweighed by the risks of those systems. Paper ballots, counted by hand, by employees of an independent commission, under the scrutiny of representatives of the candidates, seems to me to be the best system yet devised. Sure, machines can make the process faster and cheaper; But who gives a shit? It's not particularly expensive, and a fair and secure result is worth paying for - and worth waiting for. There's generally plenty of time between an election and the winner taking their seat. Surely it's better to take a week to reach the right answer, than to take an hour to reach an answer that might be right, or might be the result of fraud.

I am also in favour of mandatory turnout. The Australian system works well - you get to choose to either go to a polling station; or to cast a postal vote; or to sign a statutory declaration that you were out of the country; or to pay a nominal fine. In none of these cases are you required to submit a valid ballot paper - but it makes not voting a deliberate choice, rather than just a symptom of apathy. Well in excess of 90% of citizens cast a valid ballot, which rather suggests that most of those who do not do so under optional voting systems are failing to vote due to laziness, rather than due to a principled commitment not to support any of the candidates.

I would like to see a 'none of the above' option too - whereby if that option gets a plurality of the primary vote, all current candidates are disqualified and nominations are reopened.

 

[whollygoats]

Every day is a workday for somebody.

Here it is usually Tuesday.

I happen to think there is a reason to close bars on Election Day, but there is a great deal of opposition which would be even greater were it a national holiday.
And, I'm sane enough to realize it will not stop drinking, but it might help slow down stupidity at the polls. I think we may need something to the equivalent of the 'purple digit' in more 'primitive' electoral systems, and you can only buy a drink on Election Day with evidence that you have voted.

I have my doubts that a nominal fine would go over well here. Just a guess. I'm not sure that I want those who don't give a shit being forced to vote....whether apathy or anger drives it.

I would like to see a 'none of the above' option too - whereby if that option gets a plurality of the primary vote, all current candidates are disqualified and nominations are reopened.

^^^ Like. But, recognize that doing so will impose the extra balloting, outside of the established election cycle. I'm not sure what that would entail, nor engender.

 

[SimpleDon]

I am not so concerned about the mechanism of our election systems, that is the points raised about the electronic voting machines versus paper ballots or putting different colored rocks in barrels or whatever. I am not even very concerned about Citizens United or the Russians interfering with our elections. I am concerned with the cheapening of our democratic dialog, basing policies on conspiracy theories, lies, half-remembered mutterings of senile old men, alternate facts, and fake news. And the effects of voter suppression, vote caging, absentee voter fraud, and gerrymandering.

Whether the computer-based voting machines are secure from someone hacking into them is a technical point, not a practical one. It is like arguing that our currency isn't secure because our one dollar bill is so easy to counterfeit. It is, but there is no threat that anyone would do it because the payback isn't worth the risk of the effort. Likewise, the effort to hack into individual voting machines, machines that are interconnected, but not connected to the Internet. You would have to have physical access to the machine to hack it and it isn't worth the effort because the risk is too great. You can't throw an election with access to just one machine.

The system is resistant to hacking because they use double-entry bookkeeping, the votes are stored in the card that you hand to the poll worker and in the machine that you use. The cards are read and the votes tallied and the machines are also read and the votes tallied separately. The card read vote tally is compared to the machine read tally and any difference is flagged in real time as soon as the card is read, usually before you have left the polling place. This dual nature is preserved as the votes from different precincts are totaled, a recount is comparing the totals of the two different counts to each other, which is done in the order of milliseconds.

Giving people a paper copy of their votes is a problem in two ways. It makes it easier to buy votes because you would have concrete proof of how you voted. You could exchange your copy for money.

In addition, you would have the problem of buyer's remorse, people who look at their copy of how they voted and want to change their vote because they want to change it or because they made a mistake and they didn't pay attention to the summary presented to them before the vote was sealed and the card was returned to them.

What has been hacked are the voter registration roles. I would argue that this is of little importance because the registration roles long ago served their purpose and can now be abandoned. The vast majority of people now live in states where the requirements to vote on election day far exceed the requirements to register to vote. Coupled with the fact that the state governments maintain an election day database of who voted where, means that we can safely do away with the voter registration requirement and let people vote in the precinct that they live in, in effect instituting election day voter registration.

I could register to vote legally in three different countries in Georgia. Nothing would prevent me from registering to vote in all three counties. What keeps me from voting in all three counties has nothing to do with the registration roles, it is the election day database of who voted where based on my name and the driver's license or the voter ID card number that I present in the polling place.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I agree with election day being a national holiday. It should be in every country like that. Its a good idea. Its actually the best excuse for a day off that I can think of.

More specifically to the US, to protect your electoral system I think yo need to change it, and become more like an actual democracy. Put in laws to prevent extreme gerrymandering and get rid of the electoral college and go with popular vote. Maybe even go further than other countries have, and do away with the first past the post system and break the two party lock, do away with political parties altogether even. Imagine a country that became a true democracy, with "representatives" that actually represent constituent interests instead of party interests. No more party whip, etc.

 

[SimpleDon]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

Or moving it to Sunday, like it is in most countries.

Is it?

It's always on a Saturday here; IIRC in the UK, it's always a Thursday.

I agree that it's best if it isn't on a workday; And I also agree that the purported benefits of voting machines and electronic counting are VASTLY outweighed by the risks of those systems. Paper ballots, counted by hand, by employees of an independent commission, under the scrutiny of representatives of the candidates, seems to me to be the best system yet devised. Sure, machines can make the process faster and cheaper; But who gives a shit? It's not particularly expensive, and a fair and secure result is worth paying for - and worth waiting for. There's generally plenty of time between an election and the winner taking their seat. Surely it's better to take a week to reach the right answer than to take an hour to reach an answer that might be right, or might be the result of fraud.

I am also in favour of mandatory turnout. The Australian system works well - you get to choose to either go to a polling station; or to cast a postal vote; or to sign a statutory declaration that you were out of the country; or to pay a nominal fine. In none of these cases are you required to submit a valid ballot paper - but it makes not voting a deliberate choice, rather than just a symptom of apathy. Well in excess of 90% of citizens cast a valid ballot, which rather suggests that most of those who do not do so under optional voting systems are failing to vote due to laziness, rather than due to a principled commitment not to support any of the candidates.

I would like to see a 'none of the above' option too - whereby if that option gets a plurality of the primary vote, all current candidates are disqualified and nominations are reopened.

I should have said that most European countries vote on Sunday. But I finally meant on a non-workday for the greatest number of people.

Americans react badly to any mandates that they do anything. You would think that Americans would accept that they will need medical care at some point but they reacted badly to the idea that they should be able to pay for it by mandating that they should buy insurance to do it.

The "none of the above" option would freeze government in the US. No one would be elected. We would have endless cycles of elections ending in no one achieving a majority and the election being thrown out and repeated. I rather like the non-partisan elections that Atlanta just went through for our mayor and that California uses for Congress. Rather than having a primary election by party and a general election between the candidates from each party, you have a general election with however many candidates qualify and a certain runoff a month later between the top two who got the most votes. This is tailor made for the instant runoff of placing two or more votes and ranking them by desirability.

This is not an option in the parliamentary systems, of course.

My thoughts on the paper ballot versus the electronic voting machines are in post #8 above. I believe that the now shared common knowledge that the electronic computer-based machines are hopelessly flawed and subject to abuse is wrong. And of course, that the American need for instant results won't be satisfied by anything less than being able to arrive at a conclusion five minutes after the polls close.

 

[SimpleDon]

I agree with election day being a national holiday. It should be in every country like that. It's a good idea. It's actually the best excuse for a day off that I can think of.

More specifically to the US, to protect your electoral system I think you need to change it and become more like an actual democracy. Put in laws to prevent extreme gerrymandering and get rid of the electoral college and go with popular vote. Maybe even go further than other countries have, and do away with the first past the post system and break the two party lock, do away with political parties altogether even. Imagine a country that became a true democracy, with "representatives" that actually represent constituent interests instead of party interests. No more party whip, etc.

Woo boy, we can't have an actual democracy, can we? [/not as big of a joke as I intended, sadly]

There are strong anti-democratic forces in the US. And I don't mean the Democratic party, either.[/intended ambiguity]

We have crawled slowly toward a more inclusive democracy for more than two hundred years, dragging many of our fellow citizens kicking and screaming behind us.

The solution for gerrymandering is simple and in effect in a handful of states, California and Iowa, come to mind, redistricting by a non-partisan committee, not by the state legislature. The electoral college only needs one example to realize the horrors that it can produce, but we have two, Trump and Bush II.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The electoral college only needs one example to realize the horrors that it can produce, but we have two, Trump and Bush II.

Unfortunately they both fell to one side of the two party system (getting Republicans in over Democrats). Had one gone one way and the other the other way perhaps you could have a more unified call for doing away with the electoral college. As it is, it seems Republicans have a vested interest in keeping it.

It actually didn't occur to me until you pointed it out above that it has been a long time since a Republican candidate became a new president by popular vote. The last one was Bush senior?

 

[Playball40]

I would like to see Election Day be a National Holiday.

I agree. And I'm paranoid too.

 

[bilby]

Is it?

It's always on a Saturday here; IIRC in the UK, it's always a Thursday.

I agree that it's best if it isn't on a workday; And I also agree that the purported benefits of voting machines and electronic counting are VASTLY outweighed by the risks of those systems. Paper ballots, counted by hand, by employees of an independent commission, under the scrutiny of representatives of the candidates, seems to me to be the best system yet devised. Sure, machines can make the process faster and cheaper; But who gives a shit? It's not particularly expensive, and a fair and secure result is worth paying for - and worth waiting for. There's generally plenty of time between an election and the winner taking their seat. Surely it's better to take a week to reach the right answer than to take an hour to reach an answer that might be right, or might be the result of fraud.

I am also in favour of mandatory turnout. The Australian system works well - you get to choose to either go to a polling station; or to cast a postal vote; or to sign a statutory declaration that you were out of the country; or to pay a nominal fine. In none of these cases are you required to submit a valid ballot paper - but it makes not voting a deliberate choice, rather than just a symptom of apathy. Well in excess of 90% of citizens cast a valid ballot, which rather suggests that most of those who do not do so under optional voting systems are failing to vote due to laziness, rather than due to a principled commitment not to support any of the candidates.

I would like to see a 'none of the above' option too - whereby if that option gets a plurality of the primary vote, all current candidates are disqualified and nominations are reopened.

I should have said that most European countries vote on Sunday. But I finally meant on a non-workday for the greatest number of people.

Americans react badly to any mandates that they do anything. You would think that Americans would accept that they will need medical care at some point but they reacted badly to the idea that they should be able to pay for it by mandating that they should buy insurance to do it.

The "none of the above" option would freeze government in the US. No one would be elected. We would have endless cycles of elections ending in no one achieving a majority and the election being thrown out and repeated. I rather like the non-partisan elections that Atlanta just went through for our mayor and that California uses for Congress. Rather than having a primary election by party and a general election between the candidates from each party, you have a general election with however many candidates qualify and a certain runoff a month later between the top two who got the most votes. This is tailor made for the instant runoff of placing two or more votes and ranking them by desirability.

This is not an option in the parliamentary systems, of course.

My thoughts on the paper ballot versus the electronic voting machines are in post #8 above. I believe that the now shared common knowledge that the electronic computer-based machines are hopelessly flawed and subject to abuse is wrong. And of course, that the American need for instant results won't be satisfied by anything less than being able to arrive at a conclusion five minutes after the polls close.

We use instant runoff voting here for our state and federal parliaments. It works perfectly well; All the candidates for a given seat are listed on the ballot, and the voters number them in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their second preference; If there is still no candidate with more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their highest preference for a candidate still in the race, and this continues until one candidate has more than 50% of the votes, and is declared the winner.

It can take a long time to count; But seriously, if instant gratification is your thing, you need to buy a scratch lottery ticket. Democracy is too important for accuracy to be compromised for pointless immediacy.

 

[beero1000]

We use instant runoff voting here for our state and federal parliaments. It works perfectly reasonably well; All the candidates for a given seat are listed on the ballot, and the voters number them in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their second preference; If there is still no candidate with more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their highest preference for a candidate still in the race, and this continues until one candidate has more than 50% of the votes, and is declared the winner.

It can take a long time to count; But seriously, if instant gratification is your thing, you need to buy a scratch lottery ticket. Democracy is too important for accuracy to be compromised for pointless immediacy.

FTFY. Definitely better than first-past-the-post, but with the understanding that nothing will work as well as we might like.

 

[bilby]

We use instant runoff voting here for our state and federal parliaments. It works perfectly reasonably well; All the candidates for a given seat are listed on the ballot, and the voters number them in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the first preference votes, the candidate with the fewest first preference votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their second preference; If there is still no candidate with more than 50% of the vote, the candidate with the fewest votes has their votes redistributed in accordance with their highest preference for a candidate still in the race, and this continues until one candidate has more than 50% of the votes, and is declared the winner.

It can take a long time to count; But seriously, if instant gratification is your thing, you need to buy a scratch lottery ticket. Democracy is too important for accuracy to be compromised for pointless immediacy.

FTFY. Definitely better than first-past-the-post, but with the understanding that nothing will work as well as we might like.

Fair enough. Nothing works perfectly. But that was more a rebuttal to the claim "This is not an option in the parliamentary systems, of course." than a claim of actual perfection.

Perhaps a better fix would be "it works perfectly well it doesn't completely fail to work due to our parliamentary system"

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Whether the computer-based voting machines are secure from someone hacking into them is a technical point, not a practical one. It is like arguing that our currency isn't secure because our one dollar bill is so easy to counterfeit. It is, but there is no threat that anyone would do it because the payback isn't worth the risk of the effort. Likewise, the effort to hack into individual voting machines, machines that are interconnected, but not connected to the Internet. You would have to have physical access to the machine to hack it and it isn't worth the effort because the risk is too great. You can't throw an election with access to just one machine.

The problem is the security on them is generally abysmal. Furthermore, unlike counterfeiting the risk of being caught is minimal.

The system is resistant to hacking because they use double-entry bookkeeping, the votes are stored in the card that you hand to the poll worker and in the machine that you use. The cards are read and the votes tallied and the machines are also read and the votes tallied separately. The card read vote tally is compared to the machine read tally and any difference is flagged in real time as soon as the card is read, usually before you have left the polling place. This dual nature is preserved as the votes from different precincts are totaled, a recount is comparing the totals of the two different counts to each other, which is done in the order of milliseconds.

Double entry does nothing if the machine is compromised.

What you need is what we have--electronic voting machines but they print a paper tape of how you voted. You have to approve that tape to submit your vote. Since it's a tape a black hat can't simply lose a portion of it. If there's any question about the honesty of a voting machine you compare the tape vs the card.

Giving people a paper copy of their votes is a problem in two ways. It makes it easier to buy votes because you would have concrete proof of how you voted. You could exchange your copy for money.

Actually, I think the reverse problem would be more of an issue. You will bring your ballot for His Flatulence to the office Wednesday or you're fired.

What has been hacked are the voter registration roles. I would argue that this is of little importance because the registration roles long ago served their purpose and can now be abandoned. The vast majority of people now live in states where the requirements to vote on election day far exceed the requirements to register to vote. Coupled with the fact that the state governments maintain an election day database of who voted where, means that we can safely do away with the voter registration requirement and let people vote in the precinct that they live in, in effect instituting election day voter registration.

The problem is how do you prove you are who you are? Many people lack the required documentation.

I would like to see registration at the polls, though--you would get a provisional ballot, if your registration is valid it's then counted.

I could register to vote legally in three different countries in Georgia. Nothing would prevent me from registering to vote in all three counties. What keeps me from voting in all three counties has nothing to do with the registration roles, it is the election day database of who voted where based on my name and the driver's license or the voter ID card number that I present in the polling place.

Of course you would be caught if you tried to vote as the same person. The issue is if you registered as different people. Voter registration makes it much harder to pull this off because your data is run through databases seeing if there's a person matching that information.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I agree with election day being a national holiday. It should be in every country like that. Its a good idea. Its actually the best excuse for a day off that I can think of.

I used to think this but I have changed my mind on it. Instead, lets get rid of election day, it's outlived it's usefulness. Instead, you simply have poll-closing day. Early voting would become the only way to vote.

 

[Tigers!]

I would like to see a 'none of the above' option too - whereby if that option gets a plurality of the primary vote, all current candidates are disqualified and nominations are reopened.

We already have that in Australia. Its called the informal vote.
But the idea of it beating and disqualifying candidates is so attractive.