Transparent Voting Idea

Lets face it, paper ballots and computer data are too easily manipulated, and I think all of us probably harbor at least a little distrust for the process.

So why not video voting booths? It would put a face and voice to every voter, plus it would be WAY more difficult to fake.

There is (was?) a show here in Canada callled "Speakers Corner" where folks could go into a booth, put in some coins and say whatever they want with the possibility of your rant/comment/question being played on the show. Why can't the same idea (minus the coins) be used for the voting process?

Maybe have all vote videos uploaded to the internet for review?

"Voters Corner" anyone?

reply to post by Jack Squat


Because, for some unknown reason, the western nations decided the democracy requires a secret ballot where no one can know who you voted for, to protect your safety of course, it has nothing to do with making it impossible to prove vote tampering in most cases.

Anyways, you'd have a massive problem with a video voting system.

someone would have to visually confirm every single vote. That would be expensive and time consuming compared to paper or digital check marks.

and again, it's not the method of voting that's suspect, it's the method of vote tallying. Hand counts in the US are doing basically in secret a few well placed media might get in there, but not the public. Digital vote tallying is also suspect as we learned in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

There is (was?) a show here in Canada callled "Speakers Corner" where folks could go into a booth, put in some coins and say whatever they want with the possibility of your rant/comment/question being played on the show.

hmm, not sure if that was actually a show, but they used to show clips on Much Music and CityTV from it all the time. Those were the days.

reply to post by Jack Squat


No, In my opinion voting should be open because its the only true way to avoid corruption. And I believe the simplest ideas are the best.

All you need is turnstyles. Just walk through the turnstyle that belongs to who you want to vote for. Make sure noone can enter more than once using video, Job done, end of, no chance of corruption or fraud.

As the turnstyle goes round it clicks up a vote

Simple and pretty foolproof no?

Thats my idea anyways

Originally posted by phishyblankwaters
reply to post by Jack Squat

 

Because, for some unknown reason, the western nations decided the democracy requires a secret ballot where no one can know who you voted for, to protect your safety of course, it has nothing to do with making it impossible to prove vote tampering in most cases.

EXACTLY!! If I want to make it public who I vote for, I can do so. The "keep it secret" prevents me from being pressured by people who have obtained my name and my voting record and want to intimidate me. (By the way, this WAS a problem in the past. That's why we have our current setup.)

and again, it's not the method of voting that's suspect, it's the method of vote tallying. Hand counts in the US are doing basically in secret a few well placed media might get in there, but not the public. Digital vote tallying is also suspect as we learned in the 2000 and 2004 elections.

So is hand counting -- elections have been rigged before. The balance between privacy and access is difficult but I think our system works fairly well. It's not perfect, but it's decent.

It's interesting that the ones shouting about the big ticket items don't also shout about the local and regional elections (much easier to rig).

reply to post by Indellkoffer

It's interesting that the ones shouting about the big ticket items don't also shout about the local and regional elections (much easier to rig).

Actually that's exactly where most of the shenanigans take place, counting station A tallies the votes, provides a number to a district office (or however it is situated there) and they tally up all the votes for that district and supply them to the next level up.

Meaning, the final tally of votes is going from numbers provided by others, which can easily be tampered, and because of the "secret" ballot, the only indication of fraud will be polling, entry and exit polling.

Was it black box voting? Whoever showed how the diebold counting machines were rigged, had a video of many different voters complaining that they actually watched the digital voting machine flip their vote, right before their eyes.

In other cases, vote records were found dumped in a ditch on the side of the road.

The whole thing is a scam. It should be, as the OP suggest, 100% transparent. I'm not ashamed of who I vote for, why hide it? If everyone is open, it's impossible to steal the election.

The solution Could be:

At the voting boot put a member of every participating party at a table watching the voting papers going in. ( Not the vote itself, but the paper going in)

1. Let the people vote anomalously on a paper ballot with a clear red pencil.
2. Dump the content of the voting on the table, let the representatives of every party all count every paper vote. (imagine a large table, all votes come in at the right, pass every party representative and they all count.
3. Now in theorie, they all should have the same result.
4. The results are sent to the next level under visual control of all the counters.
5. At the next level the same: representatives off all the contesting parties, together receive the results and process them... to the next level, same way.

At the end the the actual persons voted for , will receive the final conclusions from all the levels.

This way, results should be highly accurate, recountable and barely fraudable.


Key is: At no given time the voting ballots and results are out of visual side off all participating parties.