Just remember that India, with a voting population probably 300 times that of the US, STILL uses paper ballots, and is refusing to change to voting machines (for a number of very good reasons primary among which is that the paper WORKS).

It takes something like 3 weeks to complete the counting of votes.

Would it cost too much for the US? What price is democracy?

The ballot prints out. You take the print out and drop it in the box. Maybe it could make two printouts so you can keep one as a safeguard.

This would solve a lot of the problems without creating the security nightmare of having the PC store the ballots and having election workers (who are often not real tech-savvy) trying to upload the votes somewhere. If a voting machine fails the polling place is out a voting machine but no votes are actually lost. Hacking is still a concern, but it’s a lot more managable because people actually have a slip of paper to look at.

Why are we making this so complicated?

We have politicians and government managers making buying decisions about voting machines, while they are utterly CLUELESS about security issues. They would not even know which “expert” advice to believe, yet they are “in charge.” Great.

Or, maybe they know damn well what they are using: machines they can manipulate.

I am using an absentee ballot in the remote hope that it might be counted correctly.

This COULD be done securely & with verification. Why the hell is it not happening?!!

Like…here for example (I hope that comes out)

One of the biggest problems some of these machines have is that they are using commercial software such as Windows CE and Access (which is unsecurable) to handle the operations of the machine. For an operation as simple as voting, all you really need is a simple program, possibly even coded onto unhackable firmware, with no editable software anywhere in the machine. The smaller the program is, the harder it is to sneak a few dozen lines of hack software into it without detection. Open-source code is also a great way to protect against hackers, since many security experts seek to overcome challenges like those to make a name for themselves within their community.

Mind you, I’m a programmer but no security expert, so I’d refer you to the hundreds of articles such experts have likely written (and been ignored) about how to make hack-proof voting machines (recommendation #1 – PAPER TRAIL). It’s time we move our country into the next century and return from the lies and deceit back to the Democratic process.

Not sure I trust a device for elections made by someone who is so firmly in one camp