You just have each polling place count its own ballots publicly, display the result in a permanent manner, reseal the box and communicate the count to a regional center. The regional center publicly sum the counts, display the sum and communicate it to a bigger center until you have the final count.
Where I am from, it takes less than two days to count a bit more than 30,000,000 ballots. You also get a very good result prediction two hours after the closing of polling places by using the official result of a set of selected small polling places known to be fairly representative of the voting population.
It gives you another check against foolishness. If the computer says there are 5000 ballots missing, someone needs to figure out why.
I don't have a problem with computers being an ALSO. It's when computers are an ONLY that I have issues.
I remember hearing a story in France where it was found that people doing the count had bits of pencil lead tucked under their nails. They would open each ballot, and if it was for the "wrong" candidate, they would discretely mark another name and the ballot would be counted as invalid since it had two names circled. Not sure if it's a true story or not (can't be bothered to check) - but seems like a good illustrations of the problems that are faced.
That's impossible. You don't write on French ballot. We use a card of a standardized format on which the name of the candidate (or the list of names) is printed which you directly put in the envelope. Cards are both sent to you by post and available at the polling station. Anything written on a ballot makes it void.
> They would open each ballot, and if it was for the "wrong" candidate, they would discretely mark another name
Ballots are open in public. The person in charge of opening the envelope does so in front of the room and with two assessors watching. They remove the ballot, read it aloud and display it to the room. It would be very difficult to read and alter a ballot without anyone noticing. A different person updates the tally on a board when the name is read.
As a software developer I trust the traditional method much more than any innovation involving machines and software.
This is one of the important parts. Every party wants itself to win, every ballot-counter also has a position, but if everyone can force a recount at any time, there's a much bigger motivation to count fairly. Multiple redundant counts is also part of that.
This exact sentiment -- that the truth of some tidbit of anecdata is not only unverified, but it's verification is irrelevent and should be treated as backing up a larger position regardless -- is one of the core problems with the current discourse.
As other commenters point out, not only is it not true, but such fraud is accounted for and mitigated in the existing procedure. So this is a bad illustration, it should seem like a bad illustration on the face of it because it hasn't been verified or contextualized, and in general we should all be suspicious of simple, pat little anecdotes that validate our assumptions about how the world is or ought to be.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm going to downvote this lazy thinking every time I see it. I hope we all aspire to better analytical thinking about the world, given that most of us here have to write software that interfaces with it.
This e-voting system is optional, can't be used for more than 1/3rd of voters in a given district, and is only being used by a small number of regions.
Given what's happened here, the moratorium on e-voting looks like it could well happen after all (funnily enough, that will also go to a vote).
We use essentially a Scantron sheet in Massachusetts.
Easy to fill out, computer countable, with a hand recount as an easy backup option.
Electronic tabulation of paper ballots is the best of both worlds. You get results today, they're pretty accurate, and there's a paper trail if you want to go back and argue later.
Also, my country manages to hand count 30,000,000 ballots in less than two days and we get a very accurate result prediction on the day of the vote using a sample of official results from small polling places known to be representative.
Hand counting is not a problem at all when implemented properly.
I’d prefer accurate >> speed when it comes down to something as important as an governmental election.
Accurate, triple-redundant hand counts can be done quickly - like in a day. Spot rechecks and audits may add another week.
Part of the problem might be one of ballot design. A US ballot is typically considerably more complicated than that. Here's one from New York [2]. There will be many races; in a presidential election there will be president, usually senator, representative, governor, state senator, local councilman, and assorted other offices. At least in New York State, the candidates will be presented by party, so a single candidate may be on the ballot multiple times.
Nobody is counting the US one by hand overnight; not without some pretty comprehensive redesigns of the ballot.
[1] https://www.gravesham.gov.uk/home/elections-and-voting/guide...
This is insane.
The Democrats ran in 4 "parties", and the Republicans in 3 "parties", for governor. The Libertarian party nominated 2 separate sets of governor/deputy governor.
The non main parties nominated the same people (sometimes), but not for some categories, randomly. Some people are nominated on different parties that nominate different people for governor.
Ultimately, it's a 2-person race in most posts, and a single nomination for coroner. Why not have 14 simple ballots with a straight choice?
The same people also do the upper house count, which usually elects 1/4 the number of people in the lower house. Very roughly, the results are usually know in a month or so. https://www.aec.gov.au/voting/counting/senate_count.htm
If the results were recorded electronically I guess a computer would spit out the final outcome within a few minutes of the ballot box closing.
More importantly, yes you can rig a paper ballot, but you can't do it large scale without everybody knowing it.
In the UK state-level interference would likely go unnoticed if it mugged only postal votes and didn't push too obviously-far in one direction or another. I've been on the receiving end of mail interference and since then I can only assume it's become a lot cheaper to do than it was.
Elections are one of the few games in town where the people that control things get to count up the vote and tell you who should control things in the future. If government was really ethical, you would expect independent auditors to be checking processes before and after.
Also as a party you don't need to monitor every precinct. You monitor those where you suspect fraud might happen. Then every voter should be able to monitor the counting process if they desire. Why should they have to rely on parties to do it for them?
Hand counting is costly, time-consuming and error-prone. Paper ballots with supervised electronic tabulation puts forward the best of both worlds. (It's how we do it in New York, too.)
Democracy doesn't work without trust. Sacrificing trust for some speed is dumb thing to do.
This process adheres to the paper trail rule, can be recounted with certainty, and yet is completely and utterly fraudulent.
Fair elections are the lynchpin of a democracy. Violate this trust, and the entire social contract is threatened.
Of course things should be good with that method. But they should also be good with some proper crypto.
I've never heard about burning ballots. Throwing packs of fraudulent ballots into voting boxes indeed has been caught on cameras multiple times.
What's more, statistical anomalies of voting results have been analyzed and they seem to indicate election fraud in favor of the Putin's party.
It is still better to have paper trail than not.
Recounts and etc should be relatively easy to manage and leave a very good paper trail tied to various machines and etc.