Re: Surprising Pattern of Florida's Election Results

From: Phil Sherrod (phil.sherrod_at_REMOVETHISsandh.com)
Date: 11/18/04 

Date: Thu, 18 Nov 2004 19:10:42 GMT

On 18-Nov-2004, "robert j. kolker" <nowhere@nowhere.net> wrote:

> > So what would you do, print out a paper receipt with an encrypted vote
> > receipt? Then if there was a question about votes, would you have all
> > voters bring in their receipts so that they could be compared to the
> > recorded count? What if some voters (let's say poor people) discarded
> > or
> > lost their receipts more frequently than other groups (let's say party
> > activists), how would you make the recount fair?
>
> Why not use paper ballots in the first place. While such a system can be
> tampered with (as anyone from Chicago knows) it is the least worst
> system of secret voting devised. In Chicago, the dead voted early and
> often, and troublesome ballots from Downstate ended up in the Chicago
> River or Lake Michagan.

The only problem with paper ballots is the time it takes for them to be
counted. My favorite voting system is the old, mechanical lever machines
which were virtually impossible to rig. What really scares me is the idea
of voting through the Internet.

I believe the person I posted my response to was suggesting some sort of
printed receipt that would be given to each voter showing who the voter
voted for in an encrypted form. Or maybe he wants to record each individual
vote in the machine separately but encrypt the identification of the voter.
In either case, I believe that it would only be a matter of time before
someone figured out how to crack the code and reveal the votes cast by
voters. I'm opposed to any system which provides the capability of
determining the votes of individuals. I think the possibility that votes
would be revealed would skew the votes and scare off some voters. How would
you feel if you had been a voter in Iraq and Saddam Hussein had the
potential of figuring out that you and your family voted against him? 

-- 
Phil Sherrod
(phil.sherrod 'at' sandh.com)
http://www.dtreg.com  (decision tree modeling)
http://www.nlreg.com  (nonlinear regression)
http://www.NewsRover.com (Usenet newsreader)
http://www.LogRover.com (Web statistics analysis)

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