Bill Roper's Journal

When it comes to counting ballots, if we could actually get everyone to really accept that the important thing is to get the right answer and getting the answer quickly isn't very important at all, we might be able to make some progress. The problem is that many people have become so obsessed with the idea of getting the results right away that they've forgotten that the results need be right. Once you have your priorities straight, and if you can get past the hangup that most of our population still seems to have that if a number is reported by a computer it is automatically correct, it's really a no-brainer that whatever system we use should produce paper ballots that can be counted by hand easily. Any system where the only record is in the machine itself (whether it's a Diebold touchscreen machine or a mechanical level machine) is just way too open to fraud.

The problems of registering and authenticating voters are much bigger than the problems with actually counting the votes, even though it's the vote counting problems that have gotten most of the attention. Again, I think we've gotten our priorities out of whack. The important thing is to make sure that each person who is eligible and willing to vote gets to vote, once, secretly, and have the vote counted -- not to make the process of voting as effortless and streamlined as possible. Eligibility and registration standards need to be made uniform and liberal, but registration and voting should both be in person except in truly exceptional circumstances.

On the other hand, we need to be sure we put enough resources into actual precincts on election day that if anyone ever has to stand in line for an hour to vote it's an outrage that causes some local officials to lose their next election. I think inadequate polling facilities in certain constituencies (which amount to under-the-radar election rigging: the voter may tough it out and wait three hours to vote this time, but he'll sure be less eager to vote next time if he has to, and it's much easier to get away with not counting the vote of the voter who never shows up than of any voter who does) may well be the biggest single problem in our elections system right now.