Why the fuck do we need to vote on machines, anyway? I don't understand this.
Many other countries use paper ballots, including highly developed ones (e.g., France, UK...)
Many other countries use paper ballots, including highly developed ones (e.g., France, UK...)
One thing I will say is that the US often has a lot more offices on the ballot than some other counties. In Washington, DC, a ballot can include Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (somebody representing an area of a maybe twenty blocks), city council member, school board member, mayor, non-voting delegate to congress, and depending on the year "shadow senator" and president. In other places one may have county commissioners, judges, sheriffs, etc. That does make for a lot of tabulation.
I do think we need paper -- a "hard copy" -- at some level, whether for the ballot itself or just a verifiable audit trail. I think 100% electronic voting would be fine so long as there's an audit trail that matches the (electronically) talkied results perfectly. I don't think dealing with millions of paper ballots would be any more advantageous than that -- you'd have to distribute and collect them (although that would happen at the centralized polling places), a few people would have to hand tally them (to ensure everyone's numbers match up), and then securely store them (via very strict "physical security" procedures/protocols) until, at some later point, they can be properly destroyed.
Logistically, electronic voting with a paper audit trail would be much easier, would require fewer people (i.e., election workers -- who are already in short supply), would give us results much quicker, and would be easier to verify/authenticate later (in the event of disputes).
But... why? What is the point of adding all this complexity? What problem is electronic voting solving?
Putting a piece of paper in a box is something everyone understands how to do, even elderly people who have never touched a computer -- how is electronic voting easier?
> would require fewer people (i.e., election workers -- who are already in short supply)
They are? I can't believe it would be more expensive to hire a few more election workers for one day than we're paying for these machines.
> would give us results much quicker,
France uses paper ballots and results are known within hours.
> and would be easier to verify/authenticate later (in the event of disputes).
This is not realistic. We are never going to go back and change an election result whether or not records of the votes were saved. Cf. Florida 2000.
Part of the witness duties should be making sure the votes for that polling location are counted accurately and there is no way to do that with electric voting systems. It's just a black box you have to trust.
Here's a better system: you go into the voting booth. They have some envelopes and stacks of preprinted ballots, each with one candidate's name. You take a ballot for the candidate you want, and put it in the envelope. Then you come out of the booth and drop the sealed envelope in a box.
After polls close, they open the box and all the envelopes, and count the ballots, in the open. Anyone can go watch. If an envelope is empty or has more than one ballot inside, the vote doesn't count.
Works well for elections with one race; those with a dozen offices being elected and an equal number of ballot measures make that... impractical.
In extreme cases you get huge ballots with this system, see e.g. (http://www.faz.net/aktuell/rhein-main/frankfurter-wahlzettel...) for Frankfurt with a ~0.9 square meter ballot.
Counting by hand still works even for those over-complicated ballots.
With 5 offices with 6 candidates each and 10 yes/no measures (a fairly modest ballot for a California election) this would require each voter be handed a packet of nearly eight million ballots to choose from.
This is clearly not practical.