|
|
|||||||
|
|
  |
 |
 |
||||
#13 Summary – Best Practices System for National Elections
A key feature of this computerized voting system is based on the production of publicly verifiable election results so that every voter receives a printed record of his/her vote and an anonymous identification code. All votes are openly listed (along with their ID code) in publicly accessible media at the precinct level, along with the official tally. Any voter can go to the Web, their library or their local newspaper to verify the inclusion and accuracy of their own vote in this public record, and anyone can verify the tally. [I thank Tom Atlee for this formulation.]
The system has these valuable performance features:
-
Solves deleterious effects when elections are "too-close-to-call".
-
Provides fool-proof software to convert personal computers into excellent voting machines.
-
Gives voters easy to-use-tools to make sure his/her vote is correct and counted.
-
Provides recounts in a minute with total accuracy.
-
System capital costs and operating expenses, including features A thru E, are less than what the states are spending to upgrade old systems.
Provide voter tax credits based on an easy-to-use proof-of-voting
Reinforce and invigorate the belief that voting is a patriotic civic duty
Make voting a pleasure
Produce incentives for low US election turn-outs to rise to the level now achieved in free elections by only a few advanced countries
Give the country a new network with commercial use possibilities
The
greatest benefit of the system is the elimination of fraudulent and
corrupt vote-counting that can completely ignore enough legitimate
ballots to overturn voters choices by rigging voting machines and, even
worse, when the fraud is committed by false-counting, deeply embedded
software. Detecting this
kind of fraud, finding the perpetrators, and holding them accountable
can be almost impossible.
Is such
system possible?
See if you agree.
System Summary – "Best Practices System for
National Elections"
Hardware, Software, Network of the Physical System. (including key parameters). The system consists of about two million off-the-shelf personal computers (PCs), driven by simple, custom designed software provided by the manufacturer, to make these PCs into high-quality voting machines. The system is linked by an intranet for a few minutes to tally the votes at the end of election day. The PC has more than enough capability to guide a voter through a screen-based ballot by point&click, touchscreen or keystrokes, helping the voter with reminders/ corrections of all voting rules and procedures (like "vote only for 3 council members"). The system allows the voter to make changes until he/she "pulls the lever" and receives a paper copy of the ballot and a filled-in printed ballot stub showing all his/her choices.
Two million PCs, each handling about 50 voters is about the number required for a national election. The 6 to 7 hundred minutes of "poll's open" allows over ten minutes per voter and 20% spares. An estimate of the capital cost of the system is about a billion dollars for hardware and $20 million for software, an amount lower than the total expenditures of all 50 states and the federal government, both for recent and proposed new "systems".
At the close of any election, all votes need to be counted automatically at the precinct level. An average of ten PCs and two or three printers in a precinct need to be networked to produce the needed data. The precinct vote counts pass up the voting chain to about 1% of the PCs distributed mostly at the municipal level, some at the county or district level, and one (plus back-ups) at the state level. The links of the voting chain are precinct; (in large cities as necessary) municipal center; county; state and national legislative districts; state, and federal. Some large cities have sub-municipal levels. US house and state legislative districts cut across county lines and are totaled at the state level. Media will be offered outcomes, when final, at all levels from municipal on up.
National media will want tallies as soon as the polls are closed at the municipal level if that is earlier than the state poll closing and at the state level as soon as all polls in the state close. In the three evening hours or so, as polls close from east to west, state by state, the system capability permits the media to report on the congressional and gubernatorial results and announce the running tallies, both electoral and popular votes, for president and vice-president. As many observers have noted, it would be better if the latter were deferred until the polls of all states have closed.
Exit polls, which contributed to the 2000 fiasco, will be irrelevant. Counting votes is simple addition for each candidate aggregated, at most, five or six times as the vote counts go up the voting chain. This can be done accurately and reproducibly with today's technology in a few minutes, each uplink taking as little as a fraction of a second. Each PC has only a few kilobytes of data that needs to be passed up the voting chain. After the last precinct in the nation closes, rapid tallying can be done for the final count or for a recount with complete accuracy.
These processes are similar to the way that a large financial company with hundreds of branches can determine and confirm overnight cash balances accurate to the penny. Communication channels are required for at most only a few minutes at the close of the election and they need carry only a tiny bandwidth. There is no need to use the Internet, avoiding exposure to bugs, denial of service, encryption/ decryption and viruses. You can bet that thousands of hackers would lick their chops for a shot at what would be a biennial jackpot, corrupting a US national election through the Internet.
Too-Close-to-Call
The close-election problem illustrated in Florida in 2000 could also be avoided. For a whole host of reasons, the closer to a dead heat that an election comes the more difficult it is to fairly and impartially determine the winner. The approach to a resolution of this problem is that if in any state the votes for the two presidential candidates with the most votes differ by less than some very small number, called the "break-even number", the state's electoral votes would then be split between them. Either the states or the Congress can set the break-even number, or reset it, but not ex post facto, by methods described in the more complete version, 13.1 Best Practices System for National Elections.
Gore and Bush votes in Florida were within slightly less than 0.01% of each other. Still there is no guarantee that there will not be closer elections, even a dead heat, and so, with the recognition of the limits of human perfection, we need some resolution of the virtual as well as the absolute dead heat.
Some technicalities, such as three candidates inside the break-even criterion or how to handle fractional votes and dead-heats in the electoral college itself are further discussed in the complete version. If the electoral college were to be upgraded and treated seriously, resolution and possible revision of these details would give its members something potentially useful to do rather than, as in the past, utilizing these people to do mindless tasks. This proposed resolution of the close election problem is desirable and equitable. The idea was mentioned and rapidly dismissed during the long Florida count, because it was tantamount to giving Gore the victory.
Looking to the future, the proposed resolution would treat both parties fairly. Would the republicans oppose this idea because it would have meant a Gore victory if it were in place in 2000? A lesson of history going back to the Truman era suggests that they should not. Pained by five consecutive terms of democratic rule, republicans pushed through a two-term limit for presidents. For the next fifty years the only presidents who were prevented from a third term were two republicans, Reagan and Eisenhower, and both were so popular they might well have won again. Will the republicans turn down this idea for handling the close election problem and again make a mistake that will haunt them for fifty years? Practical politics with its perennial short-range view, suggests that they well might.
Sanctity of the Vote
The Precinct Tally Record is key and different from any other record used in elections. The left hand column is the computer assigned serial number, which is the only way the network identifies voters. No computer is ever told the name or any other way to identify the voter personally. Each checkmark in a voter's row means that s/he voted for the candidate named at the top of the column. With a copy of the Precinct Tally Record any voter, with serial number printed on a paper copy of the voter's own choices, called the ballot stub, received at the time of voting can quickly find her/his row and confirm that his/her ballot choices are those checked. All columns would be footed so that the number of votes received by each candidate at that precinct would appear along the bottom line, and each number is simply the count of all checkmarks in the column above it. The Record has been set up to make it as simple as possible for any individual to confirm its accuracy with respect to that individual's ballot. Though few voters can be expected to go to this trouble, a few is enough to have a profound effect on the honesty of the election, as we will see.
Precinct Tally Records would be printed in local newspaper(s), with copies publicly available at the voting place, on the Web, and at libraries and major municipal buildings, accessible to any voter. Many voters would not care about the confidentiality of their ballots and their voting serial numbers. That is to be expected, understandable and OK. The important point is that for those who do care, this feature protects their privacy and permits them to challenge discrepancies between the tally record and their own ballot whose official nature is enhanced by the unique characteristics of the ballot stub described in the next section.
Verifying Election Results
The fact that only a small percentage of voters would go to the trouble of confirming that their own individual votes were properly included in the total tally helps catch any election officials, computer technicians, or politicians who accidentally, incompetently or fraudulently alter vote counts. That problem would disappear.
The process is transparent and readily checked by the media and by losing candidates. Both groups, eager to spot any tally errors anywhere along the voting chain, and assisted by voters complaints if their ballot stubs prove that a Precinct Tally Record was in error, could directly challenge election officials involved, who would avoid such easily traced fraud. That fact alone would assure that that kind of inaccuracy would not occur.
Inserting software in a PC at the precinct level that fraudulently creates filled-out ballots for non-existing voters with false serial numbers that would disagree with the sequential voter numbering systems maintained by election officials in the precinct, would also be easily detected. Such local officials would make sure that their careers were not going to be ruined by such a foolish effort.
The Precinct Tally Record, with rows across and columns down, typically will be a large and broad sheet, sometimes more like a scroll, – here shown schematically with 462 rows, one for each completed ballot, sequentially numbered at start of voter's ballot entries plus a sequential letter code at voter's completion designating the pc where ballot data was stored. Typically a ballot has 30 or more columns, one for each ballot item (office or policy -- referenda, etc.) Each item column total is the count of checkmarks in the column. The stub of a ballot has the information of one row of the Precinct Tally Record.
Overlooked by many election reformers is the fact that any system that did not have the features of this system but still used general purpose electronic computers (essentially PCs) as voting and tallying machines is vulnerable. As described in July 2001, in the Appendix of 13.1, electronic voting machines with the capability of handling the unique requirements for properly loading data prior to each election (different data in each of the 200,000 computers) can be artfully reprogrammed to manipulate and corrupt vote counts. The temptation in time might be irresistible for election supervisors, political partisans, and/or financially compensated or partisan oriented computer engineers/ programmers. The system eliminates this danger.
In a nutshell, the processes of registration, correcting incorrect registrations, handling absentee ballots and write-in votes, avoiding dubious registration categories (ex-felons, address changes, etc.) and identifying properly registered voters at the precinct level are handled by a registration sub-system. The complete version 13.1, last revised 8/02/01, also provides separation of precinct volunteers and registration officials from the actual voting process, and addresses procedures, traffic, and layout of voting places to assist voters needing help while taking precautions that ballot entry outcomes are not manipulated.
Increasing Voter Turn-out
What drives the turn-out of 46% to 52% of adults who have voted in recent presidential elections? Opinion surveys show a large percentage of voters vote for reasons like: "It's part of the American tradition that made this country great". "My parents voted religiously", "It's my civic duty", etc. People who think like this are not looking to be paid. They are going to vote anyway. The worse the country seems to be doing, the more likely they vote.
But
many feel that our democracy does or says little to make them feel that
the country really cares whether they vote.
Candidates care, mainly for personal career reasons.
People would appreciate some official, meaningful, personal
recognition for the act of voting.
How can the country give us personal recognition for voting?
Envision the next presidential election this way.
At the polling place you have received a ballot with a high
quality, adhesive- backed ballot-stub, peel-away-protected (like postage
stamp rolls). You save the stub and so does your spouse.
Let's say you are married and you file taxes jointly.
On the IRS 1040 form there is a line just the right size for the
peel-and-stick stubs. Assuming
Congress has passed a law authorizing all this, your nuclear family of
two, gets an automatic tax reduction of, say, one dollar each, two for two
dollars. Success of this
approach is not the lure of money. Its
aim is recognition.
A National Lottery Honoring Voters
Congress should consider a lottery to make voting more appealing. Honoring voters is a good purpose for a national lottery and the lure of a lottery, even only once every four years, could raise the number of IRS filers too. (Once someone files who has never filed, it's riskier to not continue filing.) Not all voters are eligible to win top prizes of over a million dollars, only the "ticket holders" who have affixed their stubs. In 13.1 I estimate the size of turn-out increases and the cost to the US treasury for various tax credits and lottery amounts. Allowing for the likelihood that if the voters get both a dollar tax credit (for recognition) and a shot at a $10 million lottery, within a few years the numbers voting in a typical heavy turnout national election would shoot up to 70% from the current 50% average. Although the US treasury would be out $100 million from lottery distribution plus lost tax revenue, it is likely that so many people would be excited about the lottery, not to mention feeling virtuous for being good voters, that they would generously report on average about $20 more of gross income producing an extra $3 of taxes, or a total of a whopping $270 million more revenue. Even omitting the possible IRS windfall from those induced to file to participate in the lottery, the IRS gains $170 million and, at the same time, the US voter turn-out rises to a level of the few democracies with the highest percentage voter turnouts.
Further Benefits
This plan for a national election system has many potential benefits and some remarkable features. Perhaps the system could be set up as a public/private corporation, such as PBS TV or INTELSAT.
To satisfy all the election function requirements, even if it is also used for local elections, the system needs to operate on average less than two days a year (primary and final election) plus a few days out of service for set-up, maintenance, and ballot-data loading. The system can be available for other revenue producing activities over 95% of the time. It could be rented by large organizations that occasionally need to take quick, accurate votes, such as union member-voting meetings and corporate shareholder meetings. It could be used for very accurate opinion surveys. These revenues might cover much of the costs of fulfilling the system's primary purpose, national elections.
If some of the 200,000 precinct voting places were suitable as theaters or auditoriums for entertainment or educational functions, another possibility opens up: really broadband transmission that goes to those theaters or auditoriums and does not have to go "the last mile" to each home. People go to the theater or the auditorium instead, and someday perhaps to gaming rooms or sporting events operating with systems based on the election system approach. A built-from-scratch system for a much smaller number of locations, such as 2000, not necessarily all in the US, with a chain of theaters, auditoriums, and/or athletic stadiums would cost about $30 million, excluding the cost of the buildings themselves. Revenues downstream might well amortize such an investment.
As the nation decides election reforms, isn't this election system worth a closer look?