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I think Mary did not adequately answer the question. As an
"election official' who has used the Hart Ballot Now Central County
system for tabulation, reconciling and auditing- I am in a position
to know a bit about how the bar code or unique number on each Hart
ballot functions. I assure you that the original intention of the unique number (and associated bar code) is not "so that people can trace back..." as Mary states below. I hope she really means to be joking. The number facilitates correlation of the ballot images (digital scans) that are extensively and constructively used by Hart Ballot Now in the tabulation/reconciliation process. Hart allows every centrally counted paper ballot to be visualized on a screen, observed by election judges, and optionally re-interpreted. The number permits the physical paper ballot to be found and inspected in the course of reconciliation. Likewise it allows for investigation of discrepancies found during manual audits of election night totals- when finding poorly marked or otherwise damaged ballots during audit it is possible using the number to find the ballot image and determine how the voting system automatically interpreted the ballot. Of course this kind of service can only be provided by election systems that do have digital scans of ballots and also preserve the interpretation of each ballot. Only if these three records (paper ballot, electronic image, and vote pattern or cast vote record) are correlated can the benefit of such a system be obtained. It is already well understood that there is an advantage to having the unique number be unknowable at the time the voter's identity is attached to the ballot (through the enclosing envelope or by possession, etc.) This is not how the Hart system is designed- it contains a unique number on the ballot before it is given to the voter. But this pre-printing of the number allows for disambiguation of multiple instances of the ballot record- that can occur not only via photocopy- but also by mistakenly attempting to rescan a batch of ballots a second time. This has occurred in my county and was not detected by Hart only because the second scan was done on a different Hart Ballot Now system... and the two systems were not connected together (networked is the term- but DOES NOT imply attachment to the internet or any other network joined by anything but the Hart Ballot Now systems). The number also allows the system to understand how many first and second physical pages it has scanned and to know if the first and second pages are from the same voters (sometimes first and second pages end up in the wrong envelopes, etc.) So the number does provide a lot of functionality- and does not imply that the ballots are traceable- UNLESS you assume that any number on any ballot allows traceability by the voter him or herself- and this I believe is unavoidable, and not particularly harmful. It is true the unique number facilitates one of several opportunities for voters to expose their vote to others by voluntarily giving up their unique number to another party. Unfortunately there are those who are pursuing an argument that giving out the unique number could be used to confirm delivery of the vote in a vote buying scheme. I think this argument is ridiculous, as confirmation in a vote buying scheme isn't practical or sensible. The control over the opportunity to expose the voter intent remains with the individual if they have taken care of the custody of the ballot-- and if election officials have been careful to follow procedures that do not allow storage of the unique number (or other characteristics of the ballot) in a record that also contains voter identity. So there are two sides to this argument. I would prefer to have the number and also guarantee mechanically that it does not identify the voter by having it placed on the ballot after the voter's association with the ballot has ended. Harvie Branscomb On 4/3/2012 9:15 AM, Mary Eberle wrote: Hi Lou, --
Harvie Branscomb harvie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx |