Paper Ballots vs. Voting Machines vs. both

[Ernie]

This is a thread to give your preference for how citizens should cast their votes, why that is, and why you think municipalities choose to use other methods.
If you wonder why I am asking this about this, read this article.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/2 ... a-00128554

It doesn't seem to me that voting should be this complicated.

Please keep partisan comments/debates out of this thread - avoid comments that reflect negatively on either right-leaning or left leaning political persuasions. Please keep this thread focused on the topic.

[RZehr]

No opinion. It needs to be efficient, reliable, verifiable. Sometimes electronics meet those better, sometimes paper does.

[Josh]

Australia conducts multi-party ranked choice voting entirely in paper.

There is six weeks’ advance notice to set up the polling places.

They seem to have elections that run just fine.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Australia conducts multi-party ranked choice voting entirely in paper.

There is six weeks’ advance notice to set up the polling places.

They seem to have elections that run just fine.

But, alas, they typically have only one office up for grab per election, right? And votes are counted within one constituency/riding, right?

If those conditions are yrue, paper works just fine. Our elections are nightmares by comparison.

[Ken]

There are really three separate issues involved with voting machines and paper ballots

1. HOW should voters physically cast their ballots? On a touchscreen machine or on a paper ballot with a pen.
2. WHERE should voters cast their ballots? In a traditional polling precinct? By mail? Or both?
3. HOW should ballots be counted, by machine, by hand, or both (machine counting of initial results with hand-counting for close recounts)

I've lived and voted in 6 different states using a wide variety of methods over the years. Personally I despise voting machines which add enormous cost and complexity to the voting process and are often far less convenient for voters because they generate long lines at the polling places when they don't have enough machines or voters come in pulses like after work. Some people suspect this is deliberate to discourage voting because long lines inevitably seem to materialize in precincts that are not favorable to the party in power.

Personally I think all voting should be on paper ballots with the voter's preferences marked in ink. Such that the ballot being counted is actually the one filled out by the voter and not some paper receipt produced by a machine that may or may not match the electronic vote being recorded.

The only purpose of voting machines should be to accommodate disabled voters who for whatever reason can't fill out a paper and pen ballot (blind, paralyzed, etc.). I think the actual reason so many jurisdictions use these silly touch-screen machines is that they are sold a bill of goods by the companies that make these machines. Because they make so much more money selling touch screen machines. Optical scanning machines for counting paper ballots are cheap and scalable and reliable. I have used similar technology for years administering scantron tests in public schools and other types of paper tests that are scannable. It works well and there are all sorts of safety checks built in so that any sort of ambiguous entries are flagged for individual attention.

[Josh]

Australia conducts multi-party ranked choice voting entirely in paper.

There is six weeks’ advance notice to set up the polling places.

They seem to have elections that run just fine.

But, alas, they typically have only one office up for grab per election, right? And votes are counted within one constituency/riding, right?

If those conditions are yrue, paper works just fine. Our elections are nightmares by comparison.

When elections are called multiple candidates could be on the ballot, but often it's just 1. If there is a lot of political upheaval than state/local stuff often ends up being called when national is too.

Each electoral district (called a "returning office") sets up its election equipment, polling places, hires workers, and so forth. I had the opportunity to work one of these and would have really enjoyed it but didn't feel comfortable as an Anabaptist, particularly since I beg every election to be excused from voting, which is not a right C.O.'s actually have anywhere. My sister in law regularly works these elections.

Australian politics have their issues but they would hard to defraud on a mass scale. The kind of shennanigans reported in America just wouldn't fly there. (Of course, this doesn't mean Australia is more conservative or less likely to vote in liberal politicians, etc., it's just got more honest elections than we do.)

On the flip side, voting machine companies don't get to make as much money there selling electronic voting machines...

[JimFoxvog]

I think the Illinois system works well. We have machine-readable paper ballots. Each ballot gets read by the machine, but if there needs to be a recount, the physical ballots are available.

[Swiss Bro]

Urim and tummim.

In Switzerland it‘s still paper ballots. Government has been wanting to introduce a digital system for years but no system was found to be safe enough from bugs and hacking, and at the same time protecting the voting secret so far.

P.S. I think they also manually count the votes. It often comes to proceedings because some candidates or parties claim the results were false. At the last general election the federal government who collects the state ballots published wrong numbers too early which caused a lot of outrage…

[Josh]

I think the Illinois system works well. We have machine-readable paper ballots. Each ballot gets read by the machine, but if there needs to be a recount, the physical ballots are available.

This is reasonable, although I think it's possible to count paper ballots. It may require hiring more election workers, but I don't see what's wrong with that. That provides more jobs, and the people doing the counting are doing an important service. The cost of running elections is very tiny compared to overall government expenditures.

There is a huge amount of pressure from certain circles (mostly politicians and news media) in Australia to switch to electronic voting and electronic counting so the results can be published faster (as opposed to taking 8 days).

[Ken]

I think the Illinois system works well. We have machine-readable paper ballots. Each ballot gets read by the machine, but if there needs to be a recount, the physical ballots are available.

This is reasonable, although I think it's possible to count paper ballots. It may require hiring more election workers, but I don't see what's wrong with that. That provides more jobs, and the people doing the counting are doing an important service. The cost of running elections is very tiny compared to overall government expenditures.

There is a huge amount of pressure from certain circles (mostly politicians and news media) in Australia to switch to electronic voting and electronic counting so the results can be published faster (as opposed to taking 8 days).

So do you favor building roads and highways by hand too? Like the Romans did? Carving through mountains with pickaxes and shovels? Moving rock by wheelbarrow, oxcart and by hand? That would provide more jobs as well.

The fact of the matter is that machine counting of paper ballots is: (1) more accurate, (2) much faster, and (3) cheaper than doing it by hand. And yes we know this because many jurisdictions have tested and studies show this to be true. For example: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/elj.2010.0098 and https://accurate-voting.rice.edu/wp-con ... goggin.pdf and https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/ ... elections/