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[–] 4 points 2 days ago (10 children)

Ok, so the point of the machine is to generate a ballot?

Seems like it would be easier to just skip the machine....

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  • [–] 11 points 2 days ago*

    The machine allows a digital recording that can be tabulated faster than physically counting the paper ballots.

    The paper ballots should still be the official votes and counts, but the machine means faster preliminary results.

    Digital-only voting is an issue because there is no backup paper trail, and could easily be compromised without any visible indication.

    There is no reason for the voting machine to know a name or display anything identifying. You should be verified separately before getting close to a machine to vote. It should be as dumb as possible. Only tabulating your selections and printing the result for you to verify then drop into the official box.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 days ago (7 children)

    Then you get back to the old way of punching holes in a paper ballot and well... Have you ever heard of a "hanging chad"? That shit has issues too.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago (1 child)

    I'm amazed at the American obsession with voting machines. A properly organised hand count has an amazingly low error rate. I distinctly remember an article about 20 years ago stating, that even the then newest scanning vote counting machines had an error rate higher than hand counting.

    Yes "a human" makes mistakes. But multiple humans paying attention at the same time and also keeping each other honest do a tremendously good job.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 days ago (3 children)

    I'm reasonably sure that the "hanging chads" was only a problem for counting votes for candidates from one of the two parties.

    I've heard a legend that in a Scottish parliament election, which claims that a ballot is required only to show "clear preference" that a person drew dicks on all but one candidate, over which was written "not a dick". The vote was counted as it showed clear preference.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

    The point is, people determined on a particular outcome will find novel ways of ensuring that outcome.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 days ago

    There are other types of paper ballots.

    Here in Sweden you take a ballot from the party you want to vote for, you mark any specific representative if you want, you put the ballot in an envelope, seal it, walk to the election official desk and cast your vote:

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