Re: Secret ballot and the Colorado constitution

["alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx" <alkolwicz@xxxxxxxxx>]

Paul,

If I understand your concern, it is resolved in Colorado Election Law which
provides for pre-printed ballot-serial-numbers reocrded on "removable
stubs".  Colorado law says that the the "issuing judge" is to record the
stub number alongside the voter name/id in the pollbook, and that the stub
is removed by the election judge BEFORE the ballot is cast by the voter and
retained (for audit).  In this way a secret ballot is created.  The voter
and election officials have no way to associate this ballot number to the
ballot   (short of comparing the ragged edges).

The secondary ballot serial number, which would be printed at the time the
ballot is scanned for counting, is a way to uniquely identify ballots and
physically locate them in batches.  This second number would have no
association to a specific voter.  Its purpose is to facilitate comparison
of the markings on the physical ballot to the interpretation of the ballot
by the computer. 

Al



Original Message:
-----------------
From: Paul E Condon pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 22:05:45 -0700
To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Secret ballot and the Colorado constitution


No ID marks until the moment of scanning was Paul W.'s idea intended
to address the problem of some spy-ware or some hidden cameras getting
information that could be used to associate a particular marked ballot
with a particular voter. Maybe these problems need to be addressed in
some other way. Perhaps, we can:

1) Discourage hidden cameras and other non-computer spy techniques by
application of traditional techniques of physical security, the kind
of stuff that security guards are trained to do. Use State Troopers, etc.

2) Address computer code spy-ware by requiring that *all* software in
*any* aspect of vote processing be Open to general inspection by any
concerned person. In this I really mean "all" and "any". Some will say
that this is too extreme, but if computers are to be used, and there
is strong pressure to use them, then the software must be truly verifiable.
There *are* techniques for ensuring that the actual software used is
identical
to the software approved by some testing authority. There are techniques
for ensuring that the 'machine code' software was actually derived from
some particular version of 'source code'. The trouble with these techniques
is that they leave very little wriggle room for 'proprietary' software,
and some people believe that 'proprietary' is the American Way. 

Any other ideas as to how to have both unique ID that precludes ballot
stuffing and end-to-end voter privacy? Without some, we seem to have
an unresolvable contradiction.

In the past, paper ballots were printed on special paper stock and given
watermarks and other special treatment that were very hard to copy. But
'modern' ballots that are printed on laser printers are really rather
easy to reproduce exactly with modern laser printers. 

This laser printer ballot box stuffing seems to me to be a problem for
all forms of vote counting that use ballots printed on laser printers,
including hand counting of votes. So if one allows the possibility of
laser printed ballots, one commits to requiring a lot more physical
security than most people think is reasonable. There is a real citizen
education problem here. 

On Mon, Feb 27, 2006 at 08:31:27PM -0700, Some Guy wrote:
> Problem --- if I photocopy ballots and stuff the box and there are no
> pre-printed serial numbers on the ballots, then how can you tell that
there
> are extra ballots? Eh?
> 
> paul t
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul E Condon [mailto:pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 1:17 PM
> To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: Secret ballot and the Colorado constitution
> <snip>
> I had been thinking, rather narrowly, on only the situation of
> pre-printed ballots that are handed to voters by judges in a precinct
> voting place. Your comment points to the value of a print head in the
> scanner at the ballot processing stage. If each ballot is marked at
> the time it is scanned, that mark can be used to ensure that ballots
> are not double counted. But it plays hob with reprocessing ballots
> that will need to be done because of computer malfunction.
> 
> Putting the scanners in the polling place could spoil your good idea.
> If the ballot is scanned and marked while the voter is in a vacinity
> there is still an opportunity for learning the association of vote
> with voter.
> 
> --
> Paul E Condon
> pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> 
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> 

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


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