Re: [tlug] Somewhat OT- open source software for US voting machines

[Dave M G <dave@example.com>]

TLUG,

Sorry if I've missed a beat or this has been proposed before, but it 
seems to me a lot of the electronic voting system debate is centred on 
the merits of one versus the other. Shouldn't they be combined.

I've always thought this is the best approach:

The voting booth has a touch screen interface. If the country has a 
multilingual population it wants to cater to, the voter can select the 
language. In any case, each politician comes with a picture. Each vote 
is confirmed with a nice big "You have selected X as your choice, is 
this correct?" style confirmation screen.

Anyway, the main point is that when the user goes through all their nice 
big pre-school level ease of use interface for making all their 
selections, the machine then prints out a ballot with all their 
selections printed.

This would still require paper, but it would be an advantage over 
current systems. The only names printed on the ballot are the ones the 
voter selected.

At this point the screen asks "Are the selections on the paper 
correct?". If not, the voter turfs the paper and starts again.

If so, the user presses a button to confirm, and a receptacle opens to 
take the paper, like bank ATMs take deposits.

This way, there is an electronic version and paper version. The press 
can report early poll results, the paper ballots can confirm the results 
later. And the paper ballot is printed in a standardized way that allows 
for machine reading, for quick assessment. It also has straight up human 
readable text for final confirmation if needed (which the voter needs 
anyway so as to assess if their own selections are correct).

Having multiple copies and backups is always good, right?

What I don't get is that it seems to me a system like this (or variants) 
should be stunningly obvious and I don't understand why there is even a 
controversy. Maybe I'm just being thick.

Anyway, that's my 2 yens worth.

--
Dave M G
http://tlug.jp/mediawiki/index.php?title=User:Dave_M_G