Indiana Election System

[Ben Racher]

> Rereading what the guy said, his point was that computer security and
> audibility are currently too lacking to rely on for voting in high
> stakes elections.  He suggests non-computerised voting processes to
> remove the ability for computers to compromise an election result.
>
> I don't know if that necessarily means OVF wouldn't help.  I think it's
> a step in the right direction.  I agree that we can't automatically
> assume technology is the cure to everything wrong with current or past
> election methods but I do feel it has its place.  When I moved to
> Indiana from Tennessee, I was amazed at how ancient the voting machines
> were here.  Even in my high school elections (for student council, etc.)
> we used high tech voting machines.  They were amazingly easy to use, and
> for the real elections, a ballot would be printed in the newspaper and
> it was exactly what you saw in the voting machine.  You pushed a button
> (check box in the paper ballot) and it lit up a light in that box.  You
> could change your vote as often as you wanted until you pushed the big
> VOTE button to submit your vote.
>   
That sounds a lot like the machine that the OVF is describing. Its 
critical for elections to have a paper trail, and the computer only 
aides in delivering immediate election results, but if the voters want a 
recount, they can manually go through the paper ballots and count them 
all. From what I understand of the machine the OVF is recommending, you 
make your vote on an electronic device, but it prints out a paper ballot 
that you can see, and then the user gets a receipt of their vote. It 
sounds much more trustworthy than a purely electronic device. Reading 
about the various electronic voting manufacturers infuriates me, about 
how the code is closed, how there are no paper ballots, and how the 
systems are sometimes even designed with election rigging in mind. What 
better way to keep the contract that you've got, then to ensure that the 
person who gave it to you stays in office. I've read about rigging 
incidents with electronic machines in Ohio and Florida, thinking about 
how these things are shaping our country. So the whole thing pisses me 
off, and I was excited to read about OVF as a potential solution to the 
problem. And since the machine is open-source, hopefully its saving tax 
money. So the OVF does indeed, sound like a step in the right direction.

And yes, the voting machines in Indiana are ridiculous. I think they've 
improved some of the machines in Indianapolis, but when I used to vote 
in Wayne county, it was still with a paper ballot and a needle. When you 
were done, the ballot didn't clearly indicate if you had voted 
correctly, as it was just a series of holes abstracted amongst a piece 
of a paper. It could definitely be prone to failure if the ballot was 
misaligned while you were punching in holes.

I hope the situation improves for Indiana, and I look forward to 
participating in the Tennessee elections.