Building the People’s Voting System

Author: John Sebes

Dude, Where’s My Ballot?

I just finished voting in CA’s primary — whew! 47 contests, 76 candidates total, and for on-paper voters, 4 sheets! But today, instead of hand-marking a ballot (my preference explained in an earlier posting), I used a DRE. This voting machine is part of the voting system that San Mateo County purchased from Hart Systems, … Continued

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Doug Jones on the Secret Ballot

[Today I want to share some eloquent writing about the right to a secret ballot. Though Doug Jones’ October 2008 remarks are about an issue that arose a couple years ago, his words remain extremely relevant, especially in the context of the current discussion of e-mail voting. The discussion with Doug started with an issue … Continued

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NYT on E-mail Voting

The New York Times’ Ian Urbina recently wrote an interesting article on various states’ activities around allowing email as a means for return of marked ballots from overseas and military voters. I recommend reading it for a number of reasons, but especially because of the large number of rather nuanced issues that Urbina touches on … Continued

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Childhood Ballot Confessions

I have to admit, I like paper ballots. But it wasn’t always that way. As a small child, I remember going into the voting booth with a parent, and watching them use those fine old lever machines. They were cool. The curtain made it seem like something both secret and important was happening. The little … Continued

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Kudos to Cuyahoga

I was very encouraged by recent election news from Ohio’s Cuyahoga County, reported in the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper: Reason for election machine glitch found, officials expect things to be OK for the primary. At first blush, it might seem like bad news: All told, 89 of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections‘  1,200 machines … Continued

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How to Trust a Voting Machine

[Today’s guest post is from election technology expert Doug Jones, who is now revealed as also being an encyclopedia of U.S. elections history. Doug’s remarks below were in a discussion about how to effectively use post-election ballot-count audits as a means to gain trust in the correct operation of voting machines — particularly timely, given … Continued

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E-mail Voting, Complexity, and Trust

Some of the feedback on my internet/email voting post can be summed up this way: Is email voting really that bad? Sure, emailed ballots can be snooped, tampered, or diverted en route, but so can paper vote-by-mail ballots – yet we still use them. So what, specifically, is so much worse about emailed ballots? First … Continued

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Election Tech Pilots — Panel Video Now Online

I’ve got a word to say about “pilots”. It seems timely given what seems to be a serious uptick in discussion, legislation, and trials of “pilots” of new use of election technology. Actually, the words have already been said, and by people who know much more than I do about it, at the UOCAVA Summit … Continued

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How to Get Ready to Make Ballots

We’ve been spending a good chunk of our time lately on generating ballots, and on the steps leading up to ballot generation. You might think that the lead-up would be simple — making lists of contests and candidates — but actually there is lots more to it. In fact, it’s been much more time consuming … Continued

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