[SC Swamp Fox]

I was one of the people that tried out the new voting machines on Saturday. I am not convinced that they are the solution to many of the problems with elections that have been well documented in the last few years. I am concerned that a voter verifiable paper ballot is not produced during the voting process. However, after talking to the election officials for almost an hour and going through the entire process with them, I now believe that voter fraud will be more difficult using this technology. (At least at the precint level.) Our vote total reporting system will remain unchanged with these machines.

[SC Swamp Fox]

South Carolina Ping List

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[dixie sass]

It sounds as though you are going to be using something similar to what we have. They are easy to use and you can't manipulate the information going in. Just remember to push vote when you finish.

[supercat]

I personally like the concept of the mechanical lever-action machines. I don't know enough about the inner workings to know if they contain three features I would consider essential, but a properly-designed lever-action machine should combine assured confidentiality of voters with ease of operation and reliability of results. While they wouldn't be free, I wouldn't think they'd cost excessivlely more than the fancy shamnty digital ones, especially when one adds in the costs of software maintenance contracts and such.

FYI, three features I would consider essential in a lever machine:

1. all counters should be sealed units that can never be reset or rolled back without creating visible evidence of tampering;
2. the machine must be set so that every ballot cast will always add a fixed total amount to all counters. In simplest form, each lever could have two counters: one for the number of ballots where it was selected, and one for the number of ballots where it was not. More complex arrangements could be used to reduce the number of counters and the expense of greater mechanical complexity.
3. There should a device which produces a time stamp of all ballots cast. Basically a punch-clock rigged to a paper tape. The time-stamp tape would give no indication of what candidates were selected; its only mechanical connection to the rest of the machine would be a cable running to the main operating lever. The punch clock should be designed so that it can only be set by running it forward, and should include a long counter of the number of times it has reached midnight. The "day" counter should be long enough that it will never wrap around.

Incorporating these features into a mechanical voting machine would result in a system that was much more fraud-resistant than existing devices. The machine could be constructed with windows to allow voters to confirm that certain key mechanical portions were operating, and the proper use of sealed subassemblies would make tampering very difficult. Although the time stamps would not in any way interfere with voter confidentiality (and voters could see, though a transparent panel, that the only connection between the time clock and the voting machine was the main operating -lever cable), they would make it much harder for someone to "vote the rolls" shortly before closing time. If a Republican voter showed up 30 minutes before close of polls and noticed that the clock was correct, it would be impossible for the Democrats to fake any ballots with timestamps prior to the observed time. And if a machine's time clock reports 200 ballots in the last 30 minutes, it would be hard for even a sardine not to notice that something was fishy.

[upchuck]

Thanks for the ping. As a poll clerk, I can tell you the iVote machines seem pretty steady.

However, they must be reset by a poll worker between each vote. This is done using a device called a PEB that is slid into the machine and then withdrawn. In a precinct with multiple ballots, the poll worker must also select the right ballot. Then the voter gets to cast their vote.

Election day will certainly be interesting :)

[Wampus SC]

"I was one of the people that tried out the new voting machines on Saturday. I am not convinced that they are the solution to many of the problems with elections that have been well documented in the last few years. I am concerned that a voter verifiable paper ballot is not produced during the voting process."

I meant to go to that, but wasn't able to.

Did you see if there's a way to cast a write-in vote?