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I must disagree with pecondon. In the vast majority of states and many counties in Colorado, clerks do NOT put unique marks on the FACE of the ballot to keep inventory control. In fact, it is illegal to have distinguishing marks (numbers) on the FACE of the ballot in almost every state—including Colorado.
Most clerks control the inventory and prevent duplicate scanning/counting by reconciling with poll books, envelopes received and ballot stubs counted. There
are numerous checks and balances to be certain that no double scanning occurs undetected. And none of them should rely on distinguishing numbers on the face of the ballots. Until you have been in the midst of an election where people are being intimidated by claims that the government can trace how they vote through ballot markings,
please do not minimize the problem with traceable ballots. Please see the attached letter to the Camera.
Call me a “wrong thinker and trouble-maker.” Marilyn Marks From: pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:pecondon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
an excuse and that the 'real reason' is to support the kind of attack on anonominity that you suggest. For me, I would have a hard time believing in the integrity of any vote count where the people doing the work had no method or assuring to their own satisfaction that they had not, accidentally, processed a box of voted
ballots twice. I see a conflict of goals, and I see no way of absolutely resolving it. Keep in mind that we need to keep the ballots for a possible recount, and to the naked human eye, they look just like the ballots that have not yet been counted. The people
doing the work can be trained to pretend and to swear that the never make a mistake. But they are human. They do make mistakes. If the ballots were counted at each polling place, there might be less chance of accidental mix up, but much greater chance of flat
out incompetence on the part of those who are 'trained' to do the work. There is 'ideal' and there is 'real'. With the right amount of work, it should be possible for statistical experts to produce a totally fraudulent vote count and canvass report. But it
would require the collusion of a lot of people to switch the fraudulent for the real. I agree that keeping the sheets together is a lame reason. There are a lot of lame reasons for doing things that ought to be done for some good reason, e.g "We drive on the
right side of the road because we are conservatives, unlike those pinko leftists in the UK." Peace.
Lou, As I understand it, it is to keep the sheets of the ballot together. It's a lame reason. Ralph Tuesday, April 3, 2012, 8:54:17 AM, you wrote:
-- Best regards, Ralph mailto:ralphs@xxxxxxxxx |