Is it Possible to get a Fair and Accurate Vote Count?

January 12, 2008
by Cliff Carson

I highly recommend reading Rady Ananda's piece "Papering over OptiScan Problems", an excellent discussion at OpEdNews of the dangers inherent in Electronic Voting. And her remembrance of the Josef Stalin Quote "Its not who votes that counts, its who counts the votes". I am one who believes that for a fair and accurate voting and counting system to exist, there must be traceability to the voter. Now that means that the individual vote would have a potential to lose its secrecy. But that is OK since the only way the secrecy would be lost is in a challenge to the accuracy of the reported vote results.

I had reported in 2006, that there is a way to guarantee an accurate vote but the price is loss of the individual secrecy in his/her vote. It went something like this:

Using an electronic voting machine, touch screen is fine; a voter makes their selections. Any non-selected box would have to be acknowledged with a Non-Selected symbol. A write in would have to utilize an off machine form. Each voter ballot would receive a unique transaction number that would tie the filled in ballot to the precinct, the machine, and of course the voter. The voter must select "preliminary" after selections and prior to completion. This action is to cause a print out of what's on the screen and includes the transaction number. The voter is to compare the printout to the screen info. If the printout and the screen agree, the voter selects "Accept" and the program completes the process.

All voting places are set up to have three counters plus a "Validation" box. By the validation box will be a copy machine. The three readers are one reader each for Democrat, one for Republican, and one for Independent. The voter takes the approved printout to each of the three readers and the printout is read in at each station, plus after that, the voter takes the printout to the Validation Box and per a routine gets another unique bar code stamped on the original ballot, makes a copy of his ballot for his safekeeping, and deposits the original ballot plus the additional code into the Validation box. Non-Standard ballots and Absentee, etc. receive the same routing (there is more detail involved here).

Now comes the counting. The voting machines, Readers, and the Validation Box are not linked. The number of completed/accepted ballots must agree or the election becomes under challenge. The results of the ballots must agree or the election becomes under challenge.

(Article Continues Below)

The discrepancies can be easily identified because of the unique tracking number. If not, then the Validation Box is checked against the reader counts and asking the original voter to return with his copy then checks any discrepancies. Sounds very complicated, but is actually very simple and can resolve all issues at the precinct level within a couple of days.

A couple of other things. All Federal Elections need to be accomplished on weekends or "Election Holidays". Extreme and severe penalties should be available to dissuade those that would attempt to commit voter fraud. The above action will not stop all voter fraud but would just about eliminate ballot misadventures.

When I was a teenager my township held a Wet/Dry election. My uncle was a bootlegger and had often told me that his vote, along with those that liked to drink, plus the Baptist vote would probably be enough to keep the township wet. My best bud's dad owned a liquor store and his dad would certainly agree with my uncle. There were 112 registered voters in that township. On Election Day, 114 of them voted wet and 117 of them voted dry.

In the court challenge that followed my bud was called to testify about vote fraud. The Judge asked him, "Look son, you've been accused of voting six times in this election, don't you know that's against the law? Did you vote six times"? "I sure did your honor, he replied, but it's not against the law cause I'm not old enough to vote"!!!

The Judge, with the Wisdom of Solomon, made his decision: "There is ample evidence, he stated, that the Dry bunch tried harder. In fact it's plain to see that they tried 3 votes harder. So, my ruling is that the Dry faction has won this election fair and square!!!!" My Uncle, the Bootlegger, who voted three times in the election, with tears in his eyes told me "All these no good Judges are crooked, you just can't trust them to make right decisions".

The Moral to this true story is that compromising people will always look for ways to beat the system.

If you enjoyed this post, please make a donation to help keep this website active: