:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Saturday, May 31, 2003 ::

Atrios links to an article on the farce that was Georgia's implementation of touch-screen polling. Now, for those public officials who are too stupid to learn anything from that, here's how a proper touch-screen system should work.

1. One contest per screen, voter can flip back and forth between races before hitting the submit key.
2. After submiting the vote, there is a confirmation screen showing all the voter's choices. The voter is then able to affirm said choices or to go back and change them.
3. The actual vote IS NOT KEPT BY THE MACHINE ITSELF. Instead, the voter recieves a receipt(which is the actual ballot), listing all their choices in plainly visible text. If it does not match, the ballot is shredded and the voter votes again.
4. Voter turns receipt over to polling judge. Polling judge then runs the ballot though a separate counting machine, preferably made by a different company than the voting machine. This generates the actual count for the polling place. The count is recorded at a number of times during the day, so as to minimize the damage of the counting machine breaking down.
5. Each ballot is saved and treated as a normal ballot in the event of a recount.

With such a system, there is a paper trail and, if machine tampering is suspected, a hand recount is possible.

:: The Squire 12:30 AM :: email this post :: ::
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