The Not-So-Secret Ballot
Nov. 9th, 2022 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperSo let's talk about an election thing that has absolutely nothing to do with yesterday's results.
Our polling place has been moved, so Gretchen and I hopped in the car and headed there yesterday morning to vote. I chose paper, while Gretchen picked plastic -- sorry, the touchscreen voting machine. After I filled out my two pages of ballot, including all of the judicial retention ballot, noting how the Sharpie I was given bled through the paper, but not in a place where it could be mistaken for an attempt to vote for anything on the other side, I brought my ballots over to feed into the scanner, which would then drop them into the box as a permanent record available for audit. This was all good.
What was *not* good was the older gentleman who was sitting there who informed me that I had to give him my ballots so that he could initial them before they went into the scanner. Assuming that he was not as blind as a bat, this meant that he could easily look down and see who and what I had voted for in any of the places where I had filled out the ballot.
This bothers me. Not that I think that he actually cared, but this meant that my ballot was not secret -- in fact, it meant that *every* ballot going into the machine was not secret.
This was equally true for the touchscreen balloting, as it printed out a slightly different form of ballot to be fed to the scanner, which also had to be initialed and which was -- by design and for good reason -- human readable.
As a system being used in an election where our ballots are supposed to be secret, I think this is an absolutely idiotic implementation.
At least I didn't hear my ballot being shredded for voting the wrong way as I fed it into the scanner. :)
Our polling place has been moved, so Gretchen and I hopped in the car and headed there yesterday morning to vote. I chose paper, while Gretchen picked plastic -- sorry, the touchscreen voting machine. After I filled out my two pages of ballot, including all of the judicial retention ballot, noting how the Sharpie I was given bled through the paper, but not in a place where it could be mistaken for an attempt to vote for anything on the other side, I brought my ballots over to feed into the scanner, which would then drop them into the box as a permanent record available for audit. This was all good.
What was *not* good was the older gentleman who was sitting there who informed me that I had to give him my ballots so that he could initial them before they went into the scanner. Assuming that he was not as blind as a bat, this meant that he could easily look down and see who and what I had voted for in any of the places where I had filled out the ballot.
This bothers me. Not that I think that he actually cared, but this meant that my ballot was not secret -- in fact, it meant that *every* ballot going into the machine was not secret.
This was equally true for the touchscreen balloting, as it printed out a slightly different form of ballot to be fed to the scanner, which also had to be initialed and which was -- by design and for good reason -- human readable.
As a system being used in an election where our ballots are supposed to be secret, I think this is an absolutely idiotic implementation.
At least I didn't hear my ballot being shredded for voting the wrong way as I fed it into the scanner. :)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-10 12:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-11-10 12:31 am (UTC)So the volunteer at the scanner doesn't see how you voted; collecting the printout from the now-empty folder is how they verify you.
no subject
Date: 2022-11-10 03:09 am (UTC)In MI nobody but the voter sees the voted ballot until the ID stub is removed from it, and it’s fed into the scanner. Usually, no worker sees a voted ballot until the end of the day when all of the ballots are being packed up for storage. The ID stub has a number on it, and that number is written on the voter’s application to vote, just to ensure that the voter returns the ballot they were given, but the ballot stays in the secrecy sleeve until the tab is removed. (As a matter of fact, if a voter exposes their ballot to anyone other than a minor child they have with them in the voting booth, election workers are required by law to confiscate and spoil that ballot and the voter is given a different ballot.)
no subject
Date: 2022-11-10 12:52 pm (UTC)* British usage here...