First, I’m writing about a person who’s watching and doesn’t know if they can trust the system. My point is that there’s no alternative to trust in the system, the system is built on trust.
Second, if you’re inside the system, if you’re an election worker or a government authority, you can tell who voted. But, you can’t tell who that voter cast their votes for – at least in a functional democracy.
The authorities can, and should, have all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that all the votes are being handled safely and counted correctly. But, if the public doesn’t trust the authorities, there’s nothing that the authorities can realistically do to convince the public that everything is above board. You can’t “prove” that the system isn’t rigged.
Oh you can tell. But it’s not going to be easy to report it without getting caught. Part of the process is auditing. We would take certain stacks that had incomplete marks and try and figure out who or what they meant. But it’s just hi ho hum work because it’s a madhouse. Remembering that Betty Smith voted for Prop 17 by the end of the day would be really difficult without being very obvious that was who you were looking for.
Then there are verifications on who voted at all that were registered to the right polls. All their answers are on their ballots. Security is what keeps it secret and a precise way of dealing with it. In a big room with many eyes. Kind of like a casino’s money vault.
First, I’m writing about a person who’s watching and doesn’t know if they can trust the system. My point is that there’s no alternative to trust in the system, the system is built on trust.
Second, if you’re inside the system, if you’re an election worker or a government authority, you can tell who voted. But, you can’t tell who that voter cast their votes for – at least in a functional democracy.
The authorities can, and should, have all kinds of checks and balances to make sure that all the votes are being handled safely and counted correctly. But, if the public doesn’t trust the authorities, there’s nothing that the authorities can realistically do to convince the public that everything is above board. You can’t “prove” that the system isn’t rigged.
Oh you can tell. But it’s not going to be easy to report it without getting caught. Part of the process is auditing. We would take certain stacks that had incomplete marks and try and figure out who or what they meant. But it’s just hi ho hum work because it’s a madhouse. Remembering that Betty Smith voted for Prop 17 by the end of the day would be really difficult without being very obvious that was who you were looking for.
Then there are verifications on who voted at all that were registered to the right polls. All their answers are on their ballots. Security is what keeps it secret and a precise way of dealing with it. In a big room with many eyes. Kind of like a casino’s money vault.