One thing people here often overlook

Posted Sep 1, 2004 17:05 UTC (Wed) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

If the document never leaves the booth, you can't be sure your vote will be counted. If it leaves the booth, then you could campaign "everybody that voted for X drops his receipt in a box please, so we can match the counts".

Imagine the following excercise: me and you are running for class prez. In the final sum, I have 20 votes, and you have 30 votes; but my 35 friends all come to me and say "we voted for you, here is our receipts".

OTOH, if I was the bully, I could say to all my 45 bullied, show me your receipts NOW or I'll bust you kneecaps.

Now, without the receipts coming out of the booth, and back to the first case, my 35 friends can scream all they want and I don't have any evidence of foul play. Suppose the principal exchanged 15 votes for me by 15 pre-printed votes for you. Ta-da... no one will know. If I ask for a recount, all we have is 20 for me and 35 for you EVEN IF IT's a fraud.

Now, the beauty of a good system is the following: if three different people appointed by the principal, plus two of my friends and two of your friends are looking the ballot boxes at all times, making certain the results are not tampered, summing the results independently, THEN you can be reasonably sure no votes were swinged.

Got my point?