that all ballots be accounted for. The box that they put the paper ballots in could easily be modified to grab the ballot like a xerox machine does when it feeds paper into the machine and count and number the ballot by number, date, city, precinct, and county and they when the votes are counted they would be kept in numerical order by precinct. There would be a master list of precincts and the votes would be tabulated by candidate by precinct. Spotcheck audits would be mandatory on a random basis to look for breaks in the sequence or a reader could be developed for use by the auditors to assure that no votes were missing or altered. If too many votes were missing, that precinct could not be certified. This could work very well. The offending party would object streniously to this which may be why this has not been done. Maybe this election fiasco will generate a demand by the public for reforms but I doubt it.

Someone referred to the fact that the 3 stooges could run the election better than this one was run. Moe and I object but the writer had a point. This is offered to show that we are not as dumb as some politicians. After all we have our reputation to uphold.

-- Curly (Curly@3stooges.gom), November 14, 2000

Answers

NO, the ballots must NOT have a trail back to the voter. Anonymity is easily perserved by having the ballot INSIDE a mailer which is then seperated from said in plain view of anyone interested in viewing the process. Mailer verified, ballot to the stack with the other anonymous ballots never to be one again.

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=0043Ey

Not perfect, but light years ahead of the special interest controlled charade the current drill is. Process which spits out candidates which are frankly an embarrassment to intelligence.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), November 14, 2000.

Further, the proposal by Curly contributes to a big part of the problem we currently have. If Al Gore knows Dade County has mostly Democrats, is this healthy? I don't think anyone should KNOW where their support is coming from. Support should come from the strength of ideas.

Current mess encourages DIVISION, creates imbalances and results in concentration of power in the wrong places. Accident? Hardly MHO.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), November 14, 2000.

Just in case some her think a "cyber" solution a answer, consider these two newstories.

Voter databases in disarray in many states

U.S. may face net-based holy war

You will hear the Techies pushing cyber-solutions, reject-em my advice.

Beyond the obvious fact few have even computers, or want to take a trip down to a community kiosk, they are not secure. Not secure enough for voting in what would be an easy central target and standard transmission protocols. I trust millions of Postal Workers and an open counting arena to provide the diversified, secure platform necessary.

This voting debate is NOT the massive problem the talkingheads want you to think. Like many issues it boils down to Power and vested interests.

-- Doc Paulie (fannybubbles@usa.net), November 14, 2000.