voting receipt?

[WalterMitty]

why are the republicans opposed to this idea?

i think it is a wise idea to get a paper receipt detailing your votes after you use an electronic voting machine.  it would make everyone resta  little easier.  im always very cautious when i vote.  i re-check my ballot numerous times before i cast it, making sure i didnt select the wrong person.

on what basis do the republicans oppose this idea?  cost?  but then again cost isnt a burden when it comes to things like 'star wars'...

probably the real reason republicans oppose the idea of a receipt is because those that are most likely to err in voting (poor minorities), are solid democrat voters.

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

I am strongly opposed to the idea of a "voting receipt" for several reasons.

First of all, there is the technical hassle and expense.  Just about every printer I have is problematic, whether it comes to changing ink or paper getting jammed, etc.  I really don't expect for your average 80 year old lady poll worker to know how to change out the cartridge or unjam the paper.  There are paper receipt systems that work adequately for one election, but these have not been tested over long periods of time to account for machine wear.

The digital voting machines that we have here in Memphis are excellent.  When you touch the screen next to the candidate, a very clear mark with a red box is shown.  When you have gone through all of the races, it forces you to review your ballot.  I usually check this screen many, many times before hitting the "Cast Ballot" button to ensure that I have made the choices that I want.   Not doing so is carelessness.

My biggest reservation comes from my experience as a Memphian.  Democrats will do anything possible to coerce voters and defraud the electoral process.  Around here, they put people on buses (usually operated by the Ford machine) to go to the polls.

Often times, Democrat poll workers will overlook the law and allow the bus drivers to come in and 'assist' the voters to make sure they vote straight Democrat.  We've gotten better at recruiting poll watchers to stop these shenanigans, so a receipt would offer the Dems a more efficient way to coerce voters.  There would be nothing stopping a bus driver from asking voters to show their receipts after they voted and making the implication that they might not get a ride home if they didn't vote "correctly."

Remember back in the late 1800's, many places had different color ballots for Democrats and Republicans.  In machine-controlled cities, putting the wrong color in the box might cost you your job, or in some cases your life.  Fortunately we got away from that by having the privacy of the voting booth.  Voter receipts could remove the curtain and take back the privacy that so many fought so hard to gain.

Voter receipts are nothing but an additional technical complication and a trojan horse for voter coercion.

[minionofmidas]

I am strongly opposed to the idea of a "voting receipt" for several reasons.

First of all, there is the technical hassle and expense.  Just about every printer I have is problematic, whether it comes to changing ink or paper getting jammed, etc.  I really don't expect for your average 80 year old lady poll worker to know how to change out the cartridge or unjam the paper.  There are paper receipt systems that work adequately for one election, but these have not been tested over long periods of time to account for machine wear.

Then again, I don't think your average 80-year old should be a poll worker.

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And so is not checking your paper receipt.
Seriously though: since when is carelessness a felony? Since you're effectively arguing that it should be legal to strip careless voters of their voting rights.

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 Yeah, that's definitely illegal.

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[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Then again, I don't think your average 80-year old should be a poll worker.

Election Commissions have enough trouble recruiting individuals to work the polls without placing any additional barriers.  They have excellent pay and it's an easy job but they just can't get people to do it.

And so is not checking your paper receipt.
Seriously though: since when is carelessness a felony? Since you're effectively arguing that it should be legal to strip careless voters of their voting rights.

Well if you are careless when you vote it probably means you are careless when you are making your decision as to who to vote for which means I couldn't care less about your vote.

The only solution is the paper ballot.
It's. That. Simple.

NO!  That's even worse.
When I cast my vote electronically, I have 100% confidence that the vote will be counted.  I've worked at an early voting station with a digital poll before so I understand how the machines work and understand the care that is taken to secure the data.

I think the only thing I've ever cast a paper ballot for is a student council election in High school.  We even had electronic voting for the University Student Government elections.  Paper can get easily lost and very easily mishandled.   There are polling stations in Memphis where there is no Republican presence (and the Democrats here tried to stop us from even having someone there as an observer) so there would be nothing stopping them from adding extra Democrat-marked ballots.  (They often try to do this even with the electronic system by picking people out of the voter rolls and then going into the booth and voting "for them".)

[minionofmidas]

Then again, I don't think your average 80-year old should be a poll worker.

Election Commissions have enough trouble recruiting individuals to work the polls without placing any additional barriers.  They have excellent pay and it's an easy job but they just can't get people to do it.

True...notice I said "average" by the way.

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Well if you are careless when you vote it probably means you are careless when you are making your decision as to who to vote for which means I couldn't care less about your vote.[/quote] The third part is morally unsound.

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NO!  That's even worse.
When I cast my vote electronically, I have 100% confidence that the vote will be counted.  I've worked at an early voting station with a digital poll before so I understand how the machines work and understand the care that is taken to secure the data.

I think the only thing I've ever cast a paper ballot for is a student council election in High school.  We even had electronic voting for the University Student Government elections.  Paper can get easily lost and very easily mishandled.   There are polling stations in Memphis where there is no Republican presence (and the Democrats here tried to stop us from even having someone there as an observer) so there would be nothing stopping them from adding extra Democrat-marked ballots.  (They often try to do this even with the electronic system by picking people out of the voter rolls and then going into the booth and voting "for them".)
[/quote]Well, in this case the problem obviously lies in there being no Republican presence.

[Wakie]

First of all, there is the technical hassle and expense.

The cost would be minimal.  Especially when compared to what the Bush admin spent to on mailing every tax payer a letter telling them they would get another envelope containing X dollars from the Bush tax cut.

My biggest reservation comes from my experience as a Memphian.  Democrats will do anything possible to coerce voters and defraud the electoral process.  Around here, they put people on buses (usually operated by the Ford machine) to go to the polls.

Ok, what the heck is wrong with helping people get to the polls?!?!  Both sides work this angle and it is part of the reason why the elderly have such a high voter turnout.

Often times, Democrat poll workers will overlook the law and allow the bus drivers to come in and 'assist' the voters to make sure they vote straight Democrat.

Then your problem is not having a Republican poll worker who is paying attention.  Certainly such activity is disgusting and dishonest.  Unfortunately BOTH parties play that game.  The paper receipt is an attempt to end such games.

No one is going to threaten a voter with leaving them at the poll if they don't vote the right way for one simple reason.  BECAUSE THEN YOUR PARTY LOSES THAT VOTER FOREVER!  Coercion comes in the form of honey not thumb tacks!

Voter receipts are nothing but an additional technical complication and a trojan horse for voter coercion.

BS.  Lack of receipts is an attempt by the GOP to cover up convenient "technical glitches" that go in their favor.

I find it a little too convenient that EVERY single glitch with the new voting machines went in favor of the Republicans.  Every single one.  From the extra 1,200 votes that the one OH machine added to Bush to the excessive machine failures in Democratic-heavy precincts.  The code needs to be open-source.

[A18]

There aren't any technical glitches with electronic voting machines. That's ridiculous; it's the equivillent of saying that you failed the driver's permit test because of a "technical glitch" with the machine; or that bank transactions shouldn't been managed electronically, because something might go wrong.

Computers are 100% accurate. Yes, you could make a programming error, but that's why you use open source software and test extensively - and honestly, that's almost impossible to do with something this basic.

I also don't buy this crap about private companies rigging the machines. They don't even know which slots are going to be used for which candidates.

[J. J.]

How would I "know" that if my receipt said "Bush" that  the machine didn't record "Kerry?"

Likewise, if I have a paper ballot, how do I "know" my Bush vote wasn't taken out and a Kerry vote, or a blank ballot replaced?

[Bleeding heart conservative, HTMLdon]

Often times, Democrat poll workers will overlook the law and allow the bus drivers to come in and 'assist' the voters to make sure they vote straight Democrat.

Then your problem is not having a Republican poll worker who is paying attention. 

These sites do not have Republican poll workers.  We have tried stationing poll watchers there though the Democrats filed a complaint (a strategy that was proposed by the DNC) trying to stop us from even doing that.  They didn't want a Republican at the polling place at all!!!

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How does the paper receipt change anything?

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This kind of stuff happens all the time down here.  Democrat poll workers have told black Republicans that they "aren't allowed to vote Republican here" and won't let them vote in a Republican primary.   If the Democrats can get away with it, they'll do it.

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On that, I completely agree.

[A18]

I find it a little too convenient that EVERY single glitch with the new voting machines went in favor of the Republicans.  Every single one.  From the extra 1,200 votes that the one OH machine added to Bush to the excessive machine failures in Democratic-heavy precincts.  The code needs to be open-source.

Republicans won, and therefore have no reason to make sh*t up like Democrats do.

[muon2]

I'm confused by the intent of individual receipts. Whether I've used paper ballots, lever machines, punch cards, or optical scan ballots, I've never been given a slip detailing the votes I cast. I have been given a receipt that I have voted, but it had no information on it other than my name and the ballot type I took.

I strongly support devices that leave a paper trail for post-election checking of results, but I don't see why slips to the individual is a special need associated with touch-screen machines.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

no receipt = no way to recount

they're needed for that reason alone.

[A18]

computer = 100% accurate

There is no reason to recount. Recounting a paper record would be less accurate.

[Gabu]

computer = 100% accurate

If built (correctly) to be that way.

If not, computers could be a very effective tool for fraud.

Even with open source, a very wily coder could hide problems by purposely introducing things like banana errors and fencepost errors (look them up).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

computer = 100% accurate

There is no reason to recount. Recounting a paper record would be less accurate.

then why is my computer's clock always getting a few minutes slow and I have to reset it every day?

and why have we heard all these stories about glitches already?

[David S]

There aren't any technical glitches with electronic voting machines. That's ridiculous; it's the equivillent of saying that you failed the driver's permit test because of a "technical glitch" with the machine; or that bank transactions shouldn't been managed electronically, because something might go wrong.

Computers are 100% accurate. Yes, you could make a programming error, but that's why you use open source software and test extensively - and honestly, that's almost impossible to do with something this basic.

I also don't buy this crap about private companies rigging the machines. They don't even know which slots are going to be used for which candidates.

Could a talented computer programer write a code that would take every tenth vote for candidate A and give it to candidate B, and then erase itself at the end of the day?

I like computers but I don't trust them for elections. Too many people have a reason for wanting to "adjust" the results. Once your vote goes into the computer it is totally invisible. You cannot know that it went to your candidate, and also the possibility of a recount is zero.

Where I voted an optical ballot was used. You fill in a circle with a pencil mark. An optical scanner checks your ballot for errors and records your vote.  The ballot can be manually recounted if necessary. I would like to see a marker that fills in the circle with one stroke though.

[muon2]

no receipt = no way to recount

they're needed for that reason alone.

Receipts for the voter are different than a backup trail for recounts. It's the latter that is needed to insure the reliability of the system.

[??????????]

I love how people here think somehow paper ballots are less prone to fraud. I mean look what the Democrats did in Florida in 2000. They tried to manipulate ballots to show votes for Gore.

[Nym90]

In a perfect world, electronic voting would be the best system.

However, it's potentially prone to fraud. As Gabu (who is a computer science major himself, and thus has a bit of expertise in this area) pointed out, even making the code open source, while a good idea, isn't a cure-all.

The optical scan system seems to be the best for now. Simple, easy to use even for those who are computer illiterate, and electronically records whether it's a valid vote or not at the time it's inserted into the machine. We have optical scan here and it works very well.

[WalterMitty]

I love how people here think somehow paper ballots are less prone to fraud. I mean look what the Democrats did in Florida in 2000. They tried to manipulate ballots to show votes for Gore.

i agree that bush won florida, if oyu count legal votes.

but i also admit that voting error sure helped him solidify his victory.

[Wakie]

I love how people here think somehow paper ballots are less prone to fraud. I mean look what the Democrats did in Florida in 2000. They tried to manipulate ballots to show votes for Gore.

The Dems weren't the ones who flew staffers to Florida to stage a riot and prevent the counting of ballots.

[??????????]

I love how people here think somehow paper ballots are less prone to fraud. I mean look what the Democrats did in Florida in 2000. They tried to manipulate ballots to show votes for Gore.

The Dems weren't the ones who flew staffers to Florida to stage a riot and prevent the counting of ballots.

I can't expect you to learn any facts Wanker but the head of the elections board in that county was a Demoncrat.

[Nym90]

I love how people here think somehow paper ballots are less prone to fraud. I mean look what the Democrats did in Florida in 2000. They tried to manipulate ballots to show votes for Gore.

The Dems weren't the ones who flew staffers to Florida to stage a riot and prevent the counting of ballots.

I can't expect you to learn any facts Wanker but the head of the elections board in that county was a Demoncrat.

The Secretary of State in Washington is a Republican, has certified Gregoire's victory, and has said there is no evidence of fraud in the Governor's race, and that hasn't stopped CarlHayden and some others from claiming that there still was.