Assuring Your Vote Counts (Print This)
09/14/2008
With the past week’s voting problems in D-C…wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to check to make sure your vote actually got counted? | | 
Listen |
Randy Atkins: If you can track a package,
why not your vote? That’s the concept of a newly-proposed system that
uses the most common voting technology – optical scanners. Instead of
using a regular pen to fill in a bubble next to your candidate’s name
on a paper ballot, you mark it with a special decoder pen…sort of like
in play spy kits.
David Chaum: It’s actually kind of fun to
vote because you just use the highlighter pen and then the oval turns black
but the secret letter codes are revealed in white.
Randy Atkins: David Chaum is the inventor
of “Scantegrity.” He says you’d write down that unique, randomly-generated
code on a receipt, turn in your ballot, then – when you get home – go
to an election website, type in your ballot serial number, and your code
should appear. No names are involved, so your vote remains private. Chaum
says it’s also a great spot check.
David Chaum: It only takes a small fraction
of voters to check that their votes were recorded correctly in order to
verify the integrity of the whole election.
Randy Atkins: With the National Academy of
Engineering, Randy Atkins,
103 point 5 F-M, WTOP Radio.
The system has already been used in private
sector elections and will be tested in a local public election next year.
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