Why only voter ID? (poll, Obama, election, elect)

[mmmjv]

That's the problem there, it's only voter ID that they say we need, as if there are no other security holes that could be fixed. How about these machines that don't have a paper trail? The person who programs those machines could easily rig them. How about the ballot box where you put your ballot in after you vote. I've had cons tell me tales of people waltzing into a polling place and casually dropping a half dozen ballots into the ballot box. That's a huge security hole right there. Those boxes should be made so that only one ballot at a time can go in. Those are the kind we have. I know from experience cause once my ballot wouldn't go in and the poll worker and I couldn't figure out what was going on till we discovered that it was two ballots stuck together. Does your polling place have boxes like that? There's also always a poll worker at the box so putting those half dozen ballots in one at a time isn't an option. How about counting the paper ballots? Here anybody can come in to watch the counting and every ballot is counted by two people sitting accross from one another. One person lays the ballot down flat on the table and says "Obama" and then the other person puts a check beside "Obama" on a sheet of paper that's laid down flat on the table. The papers are flat on the table so the person accross the table can see it. How about the ballots when they leave the polling place and go to the election commission, any security there? Or could somebody stop off somewhere and make a few changes. Here it's set up so that if that box was opened on route they'll know it. It's been a while since I've worked as a warden so I forget exactly what it involved but I know it had a seal that you'd have to break to open the box. It had a couple of other things too because I remember closing that box up was a bit of a process, it wasn't just throw the ballots in and close the lid. Then after all that the poll worker (used to be me) taking the box to the election commission is driven there in a police car.

Do all these states that are so worried about voter fraud already have those kind of security precautions?

[thecoalman]

Originally Posted by mmmjv

How about these machines that don't have a paper trail? The person who programs those machines could easily rig them.

Agree 100%, these machines need to use open source software and hardware that anyone can examine. They need to be physically tamper proof and should record the vote on paper that is displayed through a glass window the voter can see after voting.

Does your polling place have boxes like that?

We had huge mechanical voting machines that might have been 70+ years old up until the Florida fiasco and they were required to retire them. A few went to the Smithsonian, there was always minor issues but the count they provided was never in question. They had to go and spend millions on electronic ones that are very expensive to maintain.