Voting machine glitch during demo, Murphy’s law applies to elections as well. It sounds like Sequoia is trying to do the right thing. I can’t think of a single good reason not to have a hard paper copy of every vote. “Election officials say that putting printers on voting machines would create problems for poll workers if the printers break down or run out of paper, and the paper records will cause long poll lines with voters taking more time to check the record.” Oh no! People would be checking their votes! We don’t want that. I will personally donate to the paper fund if they’re really that worried they’re going to run out.
I still can’t believe that people want computer-based voting. Alabama uses OCR scanning of paper ballots: connect the head and tail of the arrow of the options you want to vote for, and you’re done. Not only is voting anonymous once you’ve passed the identification checkpoint, but the arrow-connection scheme leaves no room for doubt of intent. If you screw up the ballot, the system rejects it, and you’re asked to vote again–there’s no way that you can vote twice.
I am floored that one of the Union’s most backwards states votes in a manner that is so much more straightforward and foolproof than others. I think no small credit for that goes to how little Alabamians trust their state government.
Here in Georgia, we have switched entirely to electronic voting, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have been leery of the paper trail idea simply because paper receipts can be manipulated and falsified, but I like Sequoia’s idea of keeping the paper record visible while still secure inside the machine itself. It’s an idea I haven’t heard before.
The bottom line is that electronic voting is here to stay. Yes, there are always glitches in every computer system — that’s just the nature of the beast. We should work to correct them, but we will never achieve 100% accuracy, especially with tens of millions of votes being cast on these machines each election. I personally have more confidence in the reliability of the machines than I do in the competence of the voting public, but I guess that’s not my call to make, is it? 😉 A paper trail is a good idea for peace of mind, but it needs to be implemented in a careful manner, not just as a knee-jerk reaction.
We have electronic voting for all general and state elections in India. And considering we are the largest democracy in the world with the highest number of voters, America can perhaps pick some tips.
Election commission in India is one of the most respectable organisation when it comes to fairness. No florida2000 fiasco yet…
From what I’ve heard, Sushubh, the software design of Indian voting machines is much less vulnerable to abuse.