An open letter to my local newspaper and representatives
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Does your vote
count?
The other day a friend of mine confided in me that he didn't bother to vote
in the recent presidential primaries.
"Why bother? It's all
rigged."
I noted that there is ample evidence, especially recently, that the process
of counting votes, even at major caucuses, is secret and hampered an in many
counties, quite corruptable. We all
recall the Bush-Gore fiasco in Florida and the controversy over rigged voting
machines. We all noted that Hillary
Clinton took New Hampshire with 60% of the electoral votes and only %40 of the
popular vote.
I myself witnessed an instance of this in 1992 in King County Washington. I was an election judge that year and stayed
all day at my local polling place to witness each vote cast and placed into a
securely locked box. At the end of the
day I escorted several other witnesses and armed guards in an armored car to
take the votes to King County (Washington) headquarters. I watched the ballots
carefully transferred into a bag and then thrown over a Plexiglas wall to be
electronically counted exclusively by a computer. I was aghast - my entire day of witnessing
was wasted. I had absolutely no way of
verifying the count, and without the count being done right, the votes and the
voting process mattered not.
When I went to vote at the last presidential primary election, I asked the
election judge how the votes would be counted.
He replied "oh they count them all right afterwards in the back
room".
I was thankful that they weren’t being counted by some computer but why in
a "back room"? Who owns our
votes anyway? The State? The County?
The political Parties or their Bosses?
The Candidates? A Computer? The County Recorder?
The proper answer is YOU own your vote - or it is not YOUR vote. YOU are entitled to the ability to KNOW your
vote was counted and counted correctly and only once and YOU are responsible to
make sure this happens.
An idea occurred to me that spurred me on to do a little research. Kathy Ackerman, our wonderful County Recorder,
furnished me with the applicable Idaho statutes, Title 34, which says that
counters and watchers require prior approval and must meet criteria for being
admitted to the process. The code
appears to be written to allow just enough access to let those deeply involved
in the election to have the ability to “check” the other side. It does not appear to have any goal of
granting public viewing of or participation in the process. A vote recount under this system becomes an
expensive and involved process that is thus rarely done.
It seems that instead of sequestering the process behind closed doors, we
should have as open a process as possible.
Counting votes, especially with the technology of computers, the internet,
scanners, and printers, shouldn’t be hard to do correctly and openly with full
verifiability at any time yet keeping the original documents safe and secure.
Currently the county does publish the precinct totals on the web but this
is not really enough information to verify the count is correct.
Here’s one way I would think it could be done:
Make blank sheets of paper printed with a unique random number that is
covered and can be scratched off, similar to how our lotto tickets are printed. This can be done cheaply in bulk and used for
many similar purposes. The uniqueness of
the numbers need not be global but just for the printing of a batch large
enough to accommodate the largest precincts.
Print the ballots on these blank sheets.
If the voter wishes, while voting they can scratch off the coating and
copy down the ballot number they used.
They can then fold the ballot so as to hide the number and place it into
the ballot box. Secrecy is maintained
yet personal and public verifiability is now possible.
The counting process can be simplified by allowing lots of counters,
breaking up the ballots into small bundles that can be independently counted by
different people multiple times and stored in numbered envelopes. Each counter signs as to the count they got
for each bundle onto a counting summary sheet that goes with the bundle. The multitude of witnesses gives weight to
the count’s accuracy. Counters could
even scratch off any covered numbers so that each ballot is accounted for by
number and the number’s uniqueness verified.
Ballot counts on the summary sheet should match the precinct ballot
count on the voter ledger so no mysterious extra ballots could be added and any
missing ones could be noted.
Counters could even be pulled from the public schools as a requirement for
graduation supplying lots of disinterested witnesses and forcing the process to
be publicly well known.
Once the counts are established on bundle summary sheets with witness
signatures and any scratched off ballot numbers, they would be scanned and
placed online for all to see along with the precinct voter ledger. Associated spreadsheets could be created to
make the counting easy for online verification.
Counts can be looked up online by precinct. Nothing fancy just public scans of documents
and accompanying spreadsheets. The
documents are stored safe at the county recorder’s office yet viewable by
anyone at any time with all the detail that the initial counters had in front
of them.
Recounts and challenges could be done with jury oversight and most of the
job cold be done online with no assistance or cost. The jury and challengers can verify that the
physical documents match what is online by going down to the recorder’s office
and doing so in a controlled but open manner.
Discrepancies would be settled by jury who add their names to the list
of witnesses and counters on the tally sheets and becoming publically
accountable to the process.
Participation in government is both a sacred right and duty of the
free. It also serves as training in
self-government which is what the people that fled to this country long ago
came for.
This is not rocket science and I am sure I am not the first person to think
of such reforms. The counting of our
votes is currently controlled by state law so naturally, a copy of this letter
is being sent to my state representatives.
If you like this idea, how about sending a copy of this letter to your
state representative as well?
