Semi OT We need to invent a public key system for voting

• Washington. At least in Thurston County.

Can't you just use paper ballots, like all the other people?

OK, I get it that you Americans vote all the time on all the stuff, but when it's REALLY serious, like voting for the Congress or the President, can't you just use paper?

Citation, please.

One would think but it makes fraud too hard and traceable.

paper ballots don't solve the problem..

I want to "see" my vote being counted in the local pile.

Then I want to see that pile from my precinct counted in the next level up the chain

...etc

all tallies openly published...

my neighbors and I can each "see" our own votes and see the totals are correct.

There are for example 1234 votes for X and 1432 votes for Y and I can see my own vote right there in the pile.

If 150M people all wanted to see their voted counted...

You have that with paper ballots. There are poll watchers who watch the ballots being scanned. If there is a challenge, they can easily be re-scanned. The evidence isn't destroyed.

how an you see your vote after it's cast?

Bullshit.

Maybe you can get a position as a scrutineer. SFAIK this is unpaid.

What about all the other votes? did they come from real people? making your vote traceable (and therefore marketable) causes an additional problem, while protecting against one that is already solved.

Become a scrutineer.

Scrutineers needed!

That's how we do it in Canada for our civic election - paper ballot that is scanned by a machine that stores the ballot inside until the end of the day. Then the scrutineers (each party send one representative to monitor each polling booth) do a random count of a couple of machines if there is any question of accuracy. I may not like our city government, but I know they can't cheat to get elected. I have been a scrutineer at one civic election so far.

Our Federal and provincial elections use paper ballots that are counted by paid staff with scrutineers watching over the process. I was also a scrutineer for our last federal election.

Scrutineers from all parties at all polling stations are essential for a proper election process. They watch for voting irregularities and make sure the folks accepting people to vote are following the correct process. With each party watching the process it is as fair as possible. We trust our election results. We do have scrutineered recounts (scrutineers NEVER touch the ballots, they watch over the process) when the results at a polling station are close.

John

Hi,

I think there would be a market for buying/selling the keys maybe which could make the election fraud far worse, making elections possible to be bought based on buying keys based on polls in each jurisdiction.

Here is my simple idea:

get rid of all ballots, voting machines etc..

Have multiple video cameras at each polling station, and one camera per voting booth, record all the video and upload it to youtube for future review (millions of hours of video for one election).

In each booth have a big poster that the voter points a stick at for each item to vote on, and then by monitoring the video, tabulate the votes.

The votes can be tabulated by election employees, and also real time by anyone over the internet watching the video, at any time in the future as well, and if there is fraud detected etc, more people will look at that specific polling station video to find out what is going on.

cheers, Jamie

It's done this way in many places down here, too. Even in the bluest state. It's a great system.

They're called "poll watchers" down here.

Yep, add in ID and it's a really good system.

ME! Did i or did i not say "Thurston County" and "vote entirely by mail" (by direct implication).

I guess you don't understand the term. Not surprising.

I'm afraid that it is krw who doesn't understand what "citation" means - it's just a pointer to more detailed information, such as

An easier-to-follow link to more specific information would have been nice, but Robert Baer isn't much more user-friendly than krw.