r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/forever_doomed • 4d ago
US Elections Is there time to set up an Additional way of recording our votes that could be used to help solidify or challenge vote counts that come out from official processes?
in an attempt to contradict reported numbers where there is genuine, worry that not all votes have been counted, or counted correctly. (Yes I’m very concerned that follow play just might be an integral part of the voting process this year) I feel like if we were to collectively put some imagination to this, we could come up with a way for people to record their vote electronically in real time once they mail in their ballot or leave the polling station. My thought was a highly secure website that provides real time reporting of votes cast. The website could be popularized, and we should post and disseminate QR codes everywhere that could take people there easily with their smart phones or tablets. We could have volunteers with tablets at the police stations for people you don’t have smart phones to use once they come out of the booth. With so many people worried about whether this is going to be a free and fair election I feel the vast majority would be willing to record their vote on a separate platform after submitting it to the official one. I feel the system like this could be greatly useful if we end up at the spot where there are a lot of contended results. Having people record their votes a second time in an independent system could be the best chance we have moving forward to help to eliminate the possibilities of various types of fraud whether it be miscounted votes, changed votes, discarded votes, etc.
With as much as is at stake, doesn’t it make sense to have a redundancy system in place?
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u/TiredOfDebates 4d ago
A long while back, after the "hanging chad incident" (Florida's Bush v Gore), Congress wrote some legislation requiring states to do a few things for election security.
An original paper ballot is kept until the election is certified. There is also the digital scanned count as well.
This makes it possible to do a manual recount, by utilizing the original paper ballots, if there is any (serious) allegation of fraud.
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u/Balanced_Outlook 3d ago
Audits and recounts only check the vote tally after ballots have been submitted and counted. They do not verify voter registration, determine whether invalid ballots passed the verification process, or reexamine signatures. These checks focus on the final vote count, accuracy of the tabulators, not the validity of a ballot or the eligibility of every voter. This type of comprehensive review has never been done throughout the history of voting.
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u/TiredOfDebates 3d ago
Stop talking in weasel wording, and say what you actually mean.
Jesus Christ.
the eligibility of every voter.
What do you mean by this?
What would make a voter uneligible?
Audits and recounts only check the vote tally after ballots have been submitted and counted
Yes, that would be the purpose of a recount. Only the final result matters.
...
If you want the kind of security you want, we'd have to put a voter's name on each ballot. Which would undermind the secrecy of the ballot.
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u/Balanced_Outlook 3d ago
You made the statement about a “(serious) allegation of fraud.”
Fraud happens before a vote is cast. Once a vote has been cast, it can pass all recounts and audits because those processes do not verify the validity of the vote itself.
If you want to check for fraud, you have to reverify voter registration, reverify signatures, and verify the submission process. That part of the equation has never, in the history of voting, been inspected.
All these cases of voter fraud you hear about in the news come from external sources, such as someone claiming on an application that they are registered to vote.
There literally has never been a true investigation into voter fraud.
If I recount and audit one million ballots, that says absolutely nothing about whether any of those ballots are fraudulent.
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u/Objective_Aside1858 4d ago
You're overcomplicating a system that already exists.
The voter rolls in PA are available for $20 for anyone who wants them. After an election I obviously can't determine who someone voted for, but I can tell who cast a ballot - and it's trivial to see if the number of people in a Precinct showing as voting matches the number of ballots recorded from a Precinct.
The issue isn't whether a vote is recorded or not. The issue is, there is literally no conceivable system where someone who wants to spin bullshit conspiracy theories won't scream fraud
Fuck them. There is zero value in catering to them, because whatever you do won't satisfy them
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
Matching vote totals is plainly not enough. It doesn't tell you if votes were tabulated correctly.
I agree about bullshit conspiracy theories but election integrity demands a fully recountable vote. That means keeping paper ballots, as you say, but also creating a voter-reviewable paper trail for every electronic ballot cast. That is the only way you can avoid miscounted ballots, whether by accident or malice.
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u/Objective_Aside1858 4d ago
Since paper tallies are kept, and spot audits are a routine part of elections, I'm not sure what your point is
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
You responded to a question about election security by suggesting that matching the total number of ballots cast solves the problem. It does not. That is my point.
Furthermore, are you certain that every voting authority in the United States uses a system that creates a voter-reviewable paper trail for electronic ballots? US elections are highly decentralized and best practices are not universal.
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u/RabbaJabba 4d ago
Furthermore, are you certain that every voting authority in the United States uses a system that creates a voter-reviewable paper trail for electronic ballots?
We’re down to about 4% of voters living in a direct recording electronic system jurisdiction, that’s down from almost half 20 years ago. It’s not 0%, but lots of people who worry about election rigging haven’t kept up with policy changes.
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
Thank you for the information. Can you share your source so I can better inform myself? I haven't worked in elections for a number of years.
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u/RabbaJabba 4d ago
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u/bl1y 5h ago
Not sure about their methodology. The green is "Percentage of registered voters living in jurisdictions using Hand Marked Paper Ballots for most voters." (Emphasis added)
I looked at my own jurisdiction (where I'll be an election judge this year, incidentally), and I'm in a county marked green. However, the vast majority of people here use the ballot marking device.
I'm not even sure how they'd get the data because I don't believe our ballot scanning machines keep a separate tally of the types of ballots received.
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
Thanks for the link but the information therein is less helpful than I expected. That 3.9% figure reflects jurisdictions that exclusively use fully electronic balloting; many election authorities (including mine) use multiple forms of voting. Further, it does not distinguish between voting systems that do and do not create a voter verifiable paper trail; that is a critical distinction.
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u/RabbaJabba 4d ago edited 4d ago
With so many people worried about whether this is going to be a free and fair election I feel the vast majority would be willing to record their vote on a separate platform after submitting it to the official one.
No, most people would not want this. Even if it were a vast majority, as long as it’s not 100%, it’s not a useful system, since the people who opt in or out are not random.
It’s also logistically a nightmare. If you want a volunteer in every polling place, you need to change 50 state laws to allow for that, and then find a person for each of the somewhere close to 100k polling places in the country. What about absentee voters? How do you guarantee each person participating in your parallel system has actually voted, and is using your system only once?
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u/che-che-chester 2d ago
as long as it’s not 100%, it’s not a useful system
That was my first thought. If 100 people vote at a polling location and a dozen say say "no thanks" an keep walking on the way out, the numbers are worthless. Well, I supose you could confirm a blowout.
But my second thought was what about people who vote Trump and then enter Harris on the way out? Why? Just to cause chaos and further the lie that elections aren't safe.
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u/bl1y 1d ago
On the legal side, it probably wouldn't be an issue. Exiting polling is already allowed, and that's all that this is.
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u/RabbaJabba 1d ago
I interpreted “once they come out of the booth” as being inside the polling location, but yeah, if they’re standing outside that’s true
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
This has been solved for a long time. Best practices are to keep every paper ballot until an election is certified and to create a paper trail (reviewable by the voter before the ballot is cast) for every vote made on voting machines. This allows for a full hand recount.
Any voting system that doesn't observe these two basic principles reflects a questionable commitment to voting integrity in that jurisdiction.
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u/bl1y 1d ago
This is a bad idea.
Just at the most basic level, you'd need like a 99% participation rate for it to be useful, and that's just not feasible.
Imagine it was wildly successful with a 50% participation rate. And then you find an anomaly -- a race where the result is 60% Republican, but the app shows 70% Democrat. Well, the easiest explanation is just that Democrats like the app more.
Not to mention a massive security risk. For the app to work, people would need to verify they are a registered voter, so there's a lot of personal information collection, and then that information gets tied to who they vote for. It'd be a juicy target for a data leak.
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u/Sea-Chain7394 4d ago
Blockchains are the obvious solution to this. Each person gets unique tokens that can be cast and verified without giving away who cast it unless you have the private key. The distributed ledger negates hacking risks until quantum computing is a regular thing.
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
Blockchain is not the solution to everything, including an already solved problem (see my top-level comment on this post). This would just introduce a host of other problems with ballot access. How would these tokens be distributed? What about the elderly or others without access to such technology? The franchise (the right to vote) is universal to all citizens; this idea would abridge that right.
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u/Sea-Chain7394 4d ago
I never said it was the answer to everything. It is a uniquely good solution for voting systems.
The tokens are randomly generated and assigned to all registered voters. You could still vote through a machine like we currently do. There is no reason blockchin based voting would disenfranchise anyone rather it would ensure everyone could vote, no voted could be changed, and all votes are counted.
Look up how the underlying technology works and ignore the crypto bro invester shit. There are legitimate uses for the technology
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u/quixoticdancer 3d ago
How is it an improvement over current best practices that leave a paper trail for every vote, no matter how it's cast?
Eliminating the paper trail makes recounts impossible. Tying a ballot to a voter opens up a host of threats to the secrecy of the ballot. Even if the blockchain is infallible, software must bridge the gap between the record and the user (the voter or the election authority); this is as susceptible to malicious actors or errors as current electronic tabulation.
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u/Sea-Chain7394 3d ago
Blockchain systems would be far more secure. You can independently verify the vote you cast was both counted and correct meaning it wasn't changed or thrown out for whatever reason. It could be designed to be anonymous to other people including poll workers (or open if that was desired) but allow the voter to confirm it. They cannot be hacked or changed due to the way blockchains work (look up the technology if you don't understand or believe me). The software issue you mention shouldn't be an issue even if the government didn't provide a reliable and secure way of submitting you votes (if they don't for this system you couldn't trust them to for other systems either) you would be able to look up your votes on the block chain and verify it independently. The block chain is public so anyone could look it up real time and see how votes are being cast. You would need the private key to identify which vote corresponds to a specific individual.
Does that make sense?
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u/quixoticdancer 3d ago
I understand everything you said perfectly but no, it doesn't make sense. You're attempting to solve already solved problems with a new system that eliminates any possibility of meaningful recounts and undermines the secrecy of the ballot. Put simply, your solution would threaten effective democracy. Detailed rebuttals below.
You can independently verify the vote you cast was both counted and correct meaning it wasn't changed or thrown out for whatever reason. It could be designed to be anonymous to other people including poll workers (or open if that was desired) but allow the voter to confirm it.
This is precisely how current voting systems with either paper ballots or voter-verifiable paper trails work.
They cannot be hacked or changed due to the way blockchains work
Nor can paper ballots and touchscreen paper trails due to how physical objects work.
The software issue you mention shouldn't be an issue even if the government didn't provide a reliable and secure way of submitting you votes
Why not? You're just hand waving this very important concern away.
(if they don't for this system you couldn't trust them to for other systems either)
That's exactly why current best practices produce a paper trail for every ballot cast. Without this paper trail, there can be no recounts.
you would be able to look up your votes on the block chain and verify it independently.
You would be able to do so. Many who lack access to or skill with technology would not. Their votes deserve the same level of security.
More practically, what difference would that make? Do you propose that "recounts" be conducted by compelling every voter to verify their vote after the fact and submit affidavits publicly attesting to their actual vote? That is logistically absurd and runs directly counter to the critical principle of the secret ballot.
The block chain is public so anyone could look it up real time and see how votes are being cast.
This would allow observers to tie a vote to a specific voter, eliminating the secrecy of the ballot.
You would need the private key to identify which vote corresponds to a specific individual.
Again, a serious threat to the secrecy of the ballot. Anything that allows you to tie a vote to a specific voter can be abused by malicious actors. In a voting precinct, staff can prevent one person from observing (and coercing) the vote of another. That protection is erased if one can access their ballot outside of the polling place.
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u/Sea-Chain7394 3d ago
If the system is perfect then why dont people trust the system?
You clearly do not understand what I'm describing. You can do better recounts on the blockchain than with paper ballots. People can change the paper ballots replace them throw them away this cannot be done with the system I described and paper ballotscannot be identifiedback to an individualso we would neverknow if these things occurred. There is no reason they would be any less secret. You're identify is cryptographically protected.
You could print out a paper copy of the vote but there is no reason to it's pointless actually do me a favor and just Google what is a block chain. It's as simple as any other task to look up and verify what you voted is actually there in the block chain but it isn't necessary there could be resources where elderly people go if they want to check.
There is no reason for a most of these issues you are throwing up. They are silly if you just look up what is a block chain you would see
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u/quixoticdancer 3d ago
In a discussion or argument, it is customary to respond to the other party. You're just talking past me and reasserting unsubstantiated claims I already addressed. That's intellectually dishonest and wholly unproductive. Again, detailed rebuttals are below. If you wish to continue this conversation, I ask that you engage with them instead of repeating yourself.
If the system is perfect then why dont people trust the system?
First, I never said the system is perfect. It is important to note, however, that best practices in election administration are the product of expert opinion and hundreds of years of experience. Your solution can claim neither influence.
As for why people distrust the system, the answer is glaringly obvious to any observer of American politics over the past several decades. There is a faction in the US that has consistently advocated for limiting voting rights in order to preserve their political power, deploying a deliberate misinformation campaign to pursue that end. After losing a very high profile national election, this group added a new component to their effort: claiming widespread election fraud despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. This campaign has been amplified by complicit media companies, uninformed opinion shared on social media, and deliberate action by malign foreign actors.
You clearly do not understand what I'm describing.
I do. I have engaged and rebutted every point you've made.
You can do better recounts on the blockchain than with paper ballots.
You cannot perform a recount (by any sensible definition) without tangible evidence that can be scrutinized by the involved parties and a judge. A blockchain "recount" would be simply commanding a computer to check its math. Put another way, it would allow no evidentiary basis for election results to ever be challenged without sworn affidavits from every voter indicating who they voted for. I addressed this in my previous comment.
People can change the paper ballots replace them throw them away
This is your one correct point. This possibility is why best practices require multiple election administrators in every polling place, ideally representing at least both major parties, and strict rules about "chain of custody", including tamper proof seals on ballot receptacles and allowing observers to witness post-election ballot handling when necessary. It is not a foolproof system, I will grant you, but there has been no credible evidence of widescale ballot tampering in recent memory.
paper ballotscannot be identifiedback to an individualso we would neverknow if these things occurred.
That is by design; it is a tradeoff to preserve the secrecy of the ballot. That is why we install the aforementioned safeguards.
There is no reason they would be any less secret. You're identify is cryptographically protected.
You explicitly suggested that voters should have the ability to verify their vote using a "private key". This compromises the secrecy of the ballot, as I explained in my previous comment.
You could print out a paper copy of the vote but there is no reason to it's pointless
Again, the reason for a paper trail is to provide an evidentiary basis for verifying fair elections. Otherwise, you are asserting that the blockchain is infallible with no possible evidentiary basis that does not require a ludicrous process of collecting sworn affidavits from every voter and compromise the secrecy of the ballot. Again, I addressed this explicitly in my last comment.
actually do me a favor and just Google what is a block chain.
I don't claim to be a blockchain expert but I understand it well enough. Again, there must be software between the blockchain and the user; this introduces the possibility of manipulation or error, even if the blockchain itself is infallible.
It's as simple as any other task to look up and verify what you voted is actually there in the block chain
Again, tying a vote to a voter compromises the secrecy of the ballot. Again, the only actionable way to use this information to challenge the results of an election is with an absurd process of affidavit collection from every single voter that would make one's vote a matter of public record.
but it isn't necessary
Again, it is necessary if you want to preserve the extant ability to verify election results.
there could be resources where elderly people go if they want to check.
Please explain how this would be possible without compromising the secrecy of their ballot. What about non-English speaking voters or those who might have difficulty accessing these resources? Why should we intentionally add a layer of complexity and cost to the administration of elections? More important, why should we impose additional burdens on voters in order to ensure their vote is counted fairly? Again, current best practices provide all the utility of this proposal at none of the cost to taxpayers or voters.
There is no reason for a most of these issues you are throwing up. They are silly if you just look up what is a block chain you would see
I have clearly and painstakingly responded to every word of your contentions with substantive reasoning. My rebuttals are supported by expert consensus and a carefully constructed extant system of election administration.
You have not responded to these arguments in any way, choosing instead to simply reassert your unsubstantiated opinions. If you wish to continue this discussion, please do so by engaging with the points I have made. If you will not do so, I will take it as a clear indication that you are unable to because your position has no merit.
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u/Sea-Chain7394 3d ago edited 3d ago
No you don't understand. If you understood you would understand why your "rebuttals" dont make sense.
Just do the smallest amount of research and give factual reasons that a blockchain system isn't superior. You haven't done so.
The blockchain runs is a distributed ledger of transactions in this case votes tied in a sequance of blocks and distributed across thousands of computers at once. To change a vote one would have to hack every computer in the network and rerun the entire chain. It's very easy to build a secure system like this thats the point. I'm giving a very high level overview here.
Anonymity doesn't need to be violated to check the vote. You cannot determine who voted which way without the private key. The way you vote and interact with the "software" doesn't need to be any different than how we vote today and can be fare more secure. If you do not trust your government to provide a secure system using blockchain why would you trust another system they provide? The difference is unlike with the old paper punch cards you suggest I as a voter can independently verify my vote was cast and not changes but it isn't necessary to do so. You can print out the and view the entire blockchain and do a manual recount that way but it is pointless. Just because you use modern technology doesn't mean it's less secure.
I've addressed each of your "rebuttals" multiple tumes now. You keep repeating the same things and they don't make sense if you understand "well enough". You simply think the old way is best for no clear reason. You're wrong and should take a little time to educate yourself otherwise there isn't any point in continuing with this conversation
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u/quixoticdancer 3d ago
No you don't understand. If you understood you would understand why your "rebuttals" dont make sense.
Again, this is not how argument works. Asserting that everything I say is wrong and everything you say is right does not provide a lick of support for your position.
Just do the smallest amount of research and give factual reasons that a blockchain system isn't superior. You haven't done so
The creation and preservation of an evidentiary basis for potential recounts and the secret ballot are two of the fundamental principles of the effective, fair administration of democratic elections. I have repeatedly demonstrated that your suggestions would completely undermine both of these bedrock principles. You have not engaged with, much less refuted, any of my arguments. I can only conclude that you are unable to do so.
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u/OcelotCharacter1807 4d ago
What if voting is how they keep you trapped between two bad choices that benefit special interests but you can't see a solution because you're focused on two legs good, four legs bad?
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u/Objective_Aside1858 4d ago
What if urging people to vote third party was pushed by aliens from Alpha Centari?
I'm Just Asking Questions, after all
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u/gravity_kills 4d ago
I honestly think the secret ballot was a mistake. It's not possible to know if my vote was counted accurately, and that's a much bigger problem than the ones the secret ballot is intended to address.
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u/CountFew6186 4d ago
Secret ballot is essential. Otherwise people can be threatened, coerced, or bribed to vote a particular way. Secret ballots let people vote for the candidate they actually want.
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u/mrjcall 4d ago
Correct answer and essential for our voting system.
The problem is that so many do not understand what contributes to secure voting. Any extended handling of ballots outside of the voting establishment simply creates opportunity for voter fraud. It should be prohibited with all votes counted by end of voting day...with the possible exception of military.
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
You're off base here and seem to be getting your information from popular media instead of election integrity experts.
First, I don't know of any jurisdictions that don't tabulate votes at the polling place at the end of the day. The only time the initial count is completed elsewhere is when the count or it's submission fails in the voting precinct and must be completed at an election authority's facility. There is no way around this in the real world.
Second, prohibiting vote counting after the election date ignores the realities of mail-in ballots carried by the postal service; it would disenfranchise voters where mail service is less reliable. A common sense deadline several days after election day (counting only ballots postmarked by end of election day) is the sensible real world solution. This is common practice.
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u/mrjcall 4d ago
You're making my point. Mail in ballots, with a couple of notable exceptions, should be prohibited. Not sure where you're getting your data, but most states easily are able to count ballots by end of voting day. Only mostly blue states have issues. Wonder why that is???
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u/quixoticdancer 4d ago
If you think I'm making your point, you either didn't read or can't comprehend my comment.
I'm getting my data from over a decade working in elections under an attorney who specialized in them for about five decades. I've written pollwatcher training materials and participated in hand recounts. The attorney I worked under started in the field by prosecuting election fraud (back when it actually happened) and went on to write election law reference materials for the state bar, used by judges. Have you done any of these things?
Again, the only instances when votes are not tabulated by the end of election day are when something in the counting or reporting system fails or when mail delays cause absentee ballots cast on or before election day to be delivered late. Again, these are the realities of administering widespread elections in an imperfect world. These real world issues are the same across "blue" and "red" jurisdictions.
In your plainly uninformed opinion, why should mail-in ballots be prohibited? What exceptions should be allowed?
Again, I suggest seeking out data about election integrity from experts and not from right-wing media. Election fraud is vanishingly rare. Disenfranchising millions of voters to solve a problem that doesn't exist is ludicrous and patently undemocratic.
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u/mdins1980 4d ago edited 4d ago
Ah yes, the old “Democrats take longer to count votes, therefore something suspicious must be happening” argument. Never mind that states have different laws governing when mail-in ballots can be processed and counted. Some states allow ballots to be processed weeks before Election Day, while others don't allow it until Election Day itself. But sure, let's ignore those inconvenient facts.
And apparently we're pretending Republican-led states like Florida don't have extensive mail-in voting, too? Counting votes accurately is more important than having results ready for your bedtime. Elections aren't fraudulent just because you don't understand how they work. But hey, those three question marks really make a convincing argument. You would know this if you didn't have a child like understanding of how are election laws work.
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u/RabbaJabba 4d ago
Nah, the rate of fraud is so minuscule that the convenience of mail voting is not worth getting rid of.
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