I think the paper ballot represents a real security in case of a recount.
Recounting computer numbers could well mean simply recounting the same
incorrect numbers. A paper ballot is tangible. It can be inspected and
verified before counting. Perhaps, someday the technology for electronic
voting will be perfected. For now, however, I fear that as is the case in
many things, the promise is greater than the technology.
Larry Levine

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Schultz" <dschultz@gw.hamline.edu>
To: <T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au>; <smulroy@memphis.edu>
Cc: <election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 9:30 AM
Subject: Re: paper ballots

Let me go out on a limb and argue that one legacy of Florida 2000 is that

public opinion probably favors the retention of some type of paper trail
when one votes.

My argument is that while electronic voting  is easier, voters see an

ontological reality (my words) in paper ballots that can be read, examined
and handled.  The same is not true with other types of ballots.  After 2000,
paper is real.

David Schultz, Professor
Hamline University
Graduate School of Public
Administration and Management
MS-A1740
1536 Hewitt Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota 55104
651.523.2858 (voice)
651.523.3098 (fax)

<smulroy@memphis.edu> 09/24/02 10:48AM >>>

I'm not sure I understand why paper ballots would be more appropriate
for single transferable vote systems than they would be for plurality
voting.  I would think that the vote tranfers are sufficiently
complicated that the use of a computer tabulation would really speed
things along.  Conversely, plurality counting is simple enough that it
could be done relatively easily and quickly by hand using paper
ballots.  What am I missing?

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Round <T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, September 23, 2002 5:45 pm
Subject: Re: paper ballots

Addendum to Graeme's post: The Australian Capital Territory (our
smallest
jurisdiction in both population and area -- constitutionally
equivalent to
Washington DC, but socio-economically equivalent to Cambridge,
Massachusetts) experimented with touch-screen electronic voting at
its
latest Territorial election in October 2001. The initial press
releases
were at

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media9901.html

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media0008.html

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media0104.html

-- although these are old links: I could find more recent details
if
anyone's interested.

Like Cambridge, the ACT uses single transferable vote in multi-
member
constituencies (5, 5, and 7 seats), which makes them even braver
for
experimenting with electronic voting -- since one common reason
offered in
Australia for keeping to paper ballots, apart from cost, is that
all our
jurisdictions use preferential voting in some form. Voting
machines as used
in the USA do seem to simplify voting when a society is using
first-past-the-post for a number of positions, but adapting them
to
preferential systems would be more complicated.

At 12:12 20-09-2002 +1000, Graeme Orr wrote:

Australia too is all paper-ballots.  And we even provide pencils,

not

pens, to mark ballots!    The AEC long ago realised the best way

of

avoiding Floridian debacles was to stay with the simplest,

'failsafest'

technology.       The anti-fraud safeguards, they would say, lie

in

systemic reform - eg in having the most independent,

incorruptible,

professional and co-ordinated (if not nationalised) electoral
administration you can achieve.    At least no-one would claim
Canadian>
(Paper ballots also ensure that the bedrock search for 'the

intention of

the voter' remains central.  Australians by and large found it

hard to

fathom how US electoral law could deny Gore's plaint, at least if

he had

been demanding a manual recount of the whole state - which after

all was

the relevant electorate, and not just selected counties).

Graeme Orr
Lecturer, Law
Griffith University
Brisbane  4111
Australia

Rick Hasen <rick.hasen@lls.edu>
Sent by: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu

20/09/2002 03:42 AM
Please respond to rick.hasen

        To:        "election-law@majordomo.lls.edu"
<election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
        cc:
        Subject:        Computers Criticized in Fla. Voting

Here's another call for paper ballots.  Isn't anyone worried

about the

potential for fraud in the hand counting of all ballots? I know

Canada>conducts its national elections with paper, but they don't
have the same

history of voter fraud.