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

["Pete Klammer" <pklammer@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nicholas Bernstein [mailto:nicholas.bernstein@xxxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Friday, September 10, 2004 5:30 PM
> To: ralphs@xxxxxxxxx
> Cc: Joe Pezzillo; Cvv-Discuss@Coloradovoter. Net
> Subject: Re: Boulder County DA Should Investigate County 
> Elections Office, Instead
> 
> Maybe I'm being stupid,

Yup!

> but I still don't get it. If I want to buy 
> somebody's vote, I offer to pay them some money if they vote 
> for my guy. 
> I tell them to make a special  squiggle on the ballot. Then I 
> get that 
> extra disk you talked about. I don't need that mark to be on 
> the ballot 
> beforehand.

Sure, I could scrawl, "PFK was here" across the ballot.
The Duplication Board can screen the more obvious "special marks" by
substituting a replacement (duplicate) which contains only the vote marks,
and no other marks.  That's the job of a Duplication Board: to make "proper"
copies of "damaged" ballots.  And a ballot which has been marked to defeat
anonymity is clearly damaged.

> Or, if we're assuming that I have help from an unscrupulous employee, 
> why don't I just ask that employee to help me set up a hidden video 
> camera in the polling places?

Lots of things are possible.  Because hidden video cameras are not conducive
to trustworthy elections, we don't promote their inclusion as desireable
accessories to voting systems.  In fact, I'm pretty sure a very high
percentage of county clerks would agree they're against hidden video cameras
in polling places (I could be wrong; heh).  Likewise, because non-detached
ballot serial numbers are not conducive to trustworthy elections, we don't
promote their inclusion, and in fact we oppose them, too.

> Or better yet, if I'm buying votes, why not just ask someone to video 
> casting their own ballot?

Too easy (ref: your opening conjecture at the top of this message).  Why I'm
slightly less afraid of camera cell phones now than initially.  I can photo
or video my ballot marked one way, then change it before I cast; in fact I
can photo both (er, sorry Ralph, All Three or more) ways, then maybe even
sell all!  But vote buyers (smarter than the immediate audience I am
addressing at the moment) realize the same thing, and will only pay for the
real article: the votes that they can see got counted by the Clerk.

> I would argue that whether or not the mark exists on the ballot 
> beforehand is moot. If people want to buy votes now, they can.

I think the consensus is that vote buying is difficult in well-administered
secret ballot systems.

So why are you so in favor of anything that makes it easier?

--
Pete Klammer, P.E. / ACM(1970), IEEE(SA,P1583), ICCP(CCP), NSPE(PE)
   3200 Routt Street / Wheat Ridge, Colorado 80033-5452
 (303)233-9485 / Fax:(303)274-6182 / Mailto:PKlammer@xxxxxxx
   "Either Be Good, or Else Be Careful, but Do Have Fun! "