Re: Boulder County DA Should Investigate County Elections Office, Instead

[Nicholas Bernstein <nicholas.bernstein@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bravo Joe, on a well-written letter. I think your criticism is well 
directed and your writing is clear.

I want to address your third point, the identifiablity of ballots. I 
know that we have been through this ad nauseum, but I'd like to bring it 
up again without all the vitriole. I do believe that according to the 
letter of the constitution, you are correct; any identifiable mark is a 
violation. Obviously there is a good reason behind this -- to do 
otherwise could compromise anonymity.

We can dream up all sorts of ways that someone with enough time, 
motivation, and access could link a particular person to a particular 
ballot. In practice though, someone with all this time, motivation and 
access could determine someone's vote even without any identifiable 
marks. So while we can fight for the letter of the law, we run the risk 
of appearing pedantic with such a narrow focus.

I believe that in general, an identifiable mark could actually be a 
benefit in a system. It would allow an electronic ballot to be tied to a 
paper ballot. This would allow more efficient debugging of a system that 
is bound to have errors. To be clear here, I am NOT endorsing the 
specific system that the county has adopted. They may very well be using 
this mark in a dubious way. If people don't like the system, they can 
certainly use the presence of that mark to bolster their argument to get 
rid of it. But I, for one, would not be opposed to a system that had a 
mark, provided I could be assured that it could not traced back to me.

That last part, the anonymity part, is why I so strongly believe that we 
should be focusing on attaining open-source code. This is the only way 
to ensure that anonymity will not be compromised, mark or no mark.

Nick

--
My razor-sharp wit was confiscated at airport security.