Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Tuesday February 20 2018, @08:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the newer-is-not-necessarily-better dept.

The Intercept reports

The nation's secretaries of state gathered for a multi-day National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS) conference in Washington, D.C., this weekend, with cybersecurity on the mind.

Panels and lectures centered around the integrity of America's election process, with the federal probe into alleged Russian government attempts to penetrate voting systems a frequent topic of discussion.

[...] One way to allay concerns about the integrity of electronic voting machine infrastructure, however, is to simply not use it. Over the past year, a number of states are moving back towards the use of paper ballots or at least requiring a paper trail of votes cast.

For instance, Pennsylvania just moved to require all voting systems to keep a paper record of votes cast. Prior to last year's elections in Virginia, the commonwealth's board of elections voted to decertify paperless voting machines--voters statewide instead voted the old-fashioned way, with paper ballots.

[...] Oregon is one of two states in the country to require its residents to vote by mail, a system that was established via referendum in 1998. [Oregon Secretary of State Dennis] Richardson argued that this old-fashioned system offers some of the best defense there is against cyber interference.

"We're using paper and we're never involved with the Internet. The Internet is not involved at all until there's an announcement by each of our 36 counties to [the capital] Salem of what the results are and then that's done orally and through a confirmation e-mail and the county clerks in each of the counties are very careful to ensure that the numbers that actually are posted are the ones that they have," he said. "Oregon's in a pretty unique situation."

[...] In New Hampshire, the state uses a hybrid system that includes both paper ballots and machines that electronically count paper ballots with a paper trail.

Karen Ladd, the assistant secretary of state for New Hampshire, touted the merits of the system to The Intercept. "We do a lot of recounts, and you can only have a recount with a paper ballot. You can't do a recount with a machine!" she said.

America's paper ballot states may seem antiquated to some, but our neighbors to the north have used paper ballots for federal elections for their entire history. Thanks to an army of officials at 25,000 election stations, the integrity of Canada's elections is never in doubt.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:50PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @03:50PM (#640684)

    One practical reason is that US elections happen on very few fixed days in the year, and then have multiple offices to choose from.
    If it were done with paper, you would need to have separate ballots and boxes for each office. The alternative, everything on one sheet, is what we have for absentee ballots, and those are error prone to hand count.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   1  
  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:49PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 20 2018, @10:49PM (#640913)

    As TFS notes, Canada has never done it any other way and has results that are accurate, agreed on, quick enough, and 100 percent verifiable.

    Hand-counted paper ballots FTW.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:21AM (2 children)

      by dry (223) on Thursday February 22 2018, @04:21AM (#641620) Journal

      We also split our elections, Federal, usually a different year (and always at least a few months) then Provincial, and in both cases we vote for one person to represent us (though most vote by party). Municipal are more complex, but do happen on a different day again.
      Besides the advantage of it being easier to count. It also divorces the elections and allows different/new parties at the different levels or even here in BC as an example, generally no parties at the municipal level (Vancouver being an exception).

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:32AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:32AM (#641682)

        Hey, you don't even have to try to convince me that you guys are smarter/better at Democracy.

        There are so many places where USA could take lessons on how to do stuff right. [google.com]

        ...but, apparently, being the global hegemon and making rich people richer are USA's only priorities.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by dry on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:58AM

          by dry (223) on Thursday February 22 2018, @07:58AM (#641692) Journal

          It has its problems. Government that has a majority is almost a dictatorship as the parties almost always vote as a block. Too much American influence where the Prime Minister's are starting to think they're a President. And of course, first past the post voting system.