What Hand Counted Paper Ballots Look Like - Wiki & Journal

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

This is meant to be an informational journal about hand counted paper ballots.

Consider this a sort of Wikie, an open source where you can
contribute your knowledge or ideas regarding HCPB.

Below I am posting information and pictures from Febble's posts (with permission)
and some pictures of optical scan ballots posted by TroubleInWinter.

UK ballots have a single contest on them.

US ballots have multiple contests (50 + ) on them.

Here are some pictures of the UK ballots:

Here are pictures of US Ballots - with a California Ballot
that has 53 items to be voted for

Febble:
"In the UK, there's only one contest on the ballot, and it is a list of names in big letters, with a box next to each name.
You put a cross in the box.
You mark the box next to the candidate you want to vote for with a pencil.

When we have more than one race (and there is rarely more than one race, and very rarely more than two) we have a separate ballot paper for each race, each on different coloured paper.
The first thing that happens is that the ballots are sorted into different races.

Occasionally there are two, or even three races in an election - there might be a referendum on some constitutional matter (devolved parliament for Scotland; entry into the EC) or a local, regional, or European election, but it is unusual to have several races.

For general elections there can be a long list of names, because there are a lot of silly candidates
(Monster Raving Loony Party candidates, etc) but for other elections, it seems to be usually the
three main parties and a few fringe parties.

In the UK it takes a few hours to count tens of thousands of ballots, which means we can count
in far larger units (constituencies). This ensures good oversight.

Apart from the that, it's quite incredibly simple compared to the US!

How anyone would oversee the process of counting US ballots in such a way that it could be checked?
With UK ballots, scrutineers can check the piles are sorted correctly, and you can actually watch the piles being stacked and counted.

If you want a system as uncorruptible as ours you have to do more than simply post pictures of hand counting in Scotland. You have to demonstrate how that system could possibly be applied to the US.

And our system isn't even uncorruptible. It's easily corruptible. But election thieves in the UK have to use a different method - they steal ballots. Which are then counted with a high degree of accuracy.

Here's a nice series of images that may help you see just how simple our system is (Cambridge this time):

http://www.lucas-smith.co.uk/photos/elections /


It's a simple system because we have simple ballots."

If you have information on HCPB, please post it on this thread.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

1. HCPB in Canada, description and photos

Here is a description of HCPB in Canada, by someone who lives there.

Note: They do not vote for their Prime Minister.

Voting in Canada Made Easy

For the benefit of my readers, the majority of whom are American, here's a very quick primer on how voting works here.

We don't vote directly for the Prime Minister. Rather, we vote for the MP -- that is, Member of Parliament -- to represent our electoral district, which is called a riding. The closest analogue to an MP in the American system is a Congressman or Congresswoman.

The winning candidate for the riding is determined by a "first past the post" system, which simply means that the candidate who gets the most votes win, regardless of how slim the margin of victory. That winner becomes the riding's MP and gets a seat in the House of Commons, one of three parts of Parliament (there's also the Crown -- represented by the Governor General -- and the Senate, who are appointed by the Governor General based on recommendations by the Prime Minister).

The leader of the winning party -- the one with the most seats in Parliament -- then becomes the Prime Minister

http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2006/1/23/1720282.html

They have one contest on the ballot.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. Long history of paperless voting plagues us

The US has a long history of paperless voting.

We won't escape it easily.

In 1980, according to the Cal Tech MIT 2001 study.

40% of the country was using hand counted paper ballots,
36.4% of the country was using lever machines.

This all started to change as people sought ways to deal with
election problems (fraud, errors, labor, etc).

It is easy to see how we ended up with an explosion of DRES.
How hard would it be to trust paperless voting when you have
had paperless voting (lever machines) anyway?

So, we have a long walk to go to getting people used to paper again.

We are over half way there (27 states )




Just getting paper ballots in combination with computerized voting
has been a major revolution.

It may be as difficult as taking on the tobacco industry.

Tobacco Industry's Economic and Political Influence

AHA Advocacy Position
To help reduce the economic and financial influence of the tobacco industry,
the American Heart Association supports efforts to level the playing field for health
advocates through political action committee (PAC) and campaign finance reform,
gift and honoraria limits, so that members of Congress can make decisions on health matters
based on a review of the facts.

Background

Historically, tobacco companies have used their economic power to wield
considerable influence on the political process

http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=11224

Cal/Tech MIT tried to measure the accuracy or quality of voting systems

Examining undervotes for president in years 1988 to 2000
1.6 percent had over vote or no vote with optical scanners
1.8 percent had over vote or no vote using paper ballots or lever machines
2.0+ percent had over vote or no vote with punch cards or electronics (DREs)
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/docs/CalTech_MIT_Report_Version2.pdf

Take a look at how each technology performed in North Carolina in 2004:

Race__________________________DRE__Lever_OpScan_Paper_Punch_Card_Other
PRESIDENT____________________2.05__1.27__2.19___0.67__1.94__2.09
US SENATE____________________3.49__4.69__2.50___4.75__2.41__3.42
GOVERNOR_____________________3.03__4.93__2.00___2.45__1.96__2.91
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR__________5.70__9.90__4.26___9.15__4.25__5.14
ATTORNEY GENERAL_____________6.61__12.94_5.43___8.53__5.90__6.75
COMMISSIONER OF INSURANCE____6.50__12.08_5.09___7.37__6.20__6.07
SECRETARY OF STATE___________7.48__10.51_6.09___9.95__7.12__7.49
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/totals.html

Hand counted paper ballots had the lowest undervote rate for President.
However, the drop off rate(higher undervotes) got worse for lower contests.
While many of us don't care about that - guess what - the folks who decide
how we will vote - many of them are affected by the drop off rate.
Whether we agree with this or not, it is a political reality.

There were only 3 counties in North Carolina that did hand counting,
and the counties only had about 5,000 - 7,000 registered voters living there.
I called the directors of these counties, to ask them how it went in 2004.
They told me that they had confidence in the HCPB, that if they had teams whose
counts did not agree that they could always find the discrepancy.
But they also told me that they had to count through the night and into the next day,
finishing about noon. That is a long night.

And - you might say -its worth it.

But the challenge is to convince the election officials and law makers -
knowing that they will be working all day, all night and part of the next day -
it is going to take alot to engage their support.

And they do hold tremendous sway with lawmakers.
It would take a major upheaval that the entire population of this country
was aware of, to bring about the type of radical change that some folks
are looking for.

Or it could take some patience.

We're only now reaching mainstream media on this!

Lou Dobbs was a big first step into the mainstream or regular media,
and he awoke a good portion of the sleeping public
http://www.votetrustusa.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1406&Itemid=27

Its a very hard sell.

Look at how hard the battle against tobacco has been

And that has taken decades!

Everyone has seen TV ads about how cigarettes cause cancer!

Have you seen any adds that say electronic voting loses votes or
can be rigged?

So anything that sets the bar high is a good step, whether you are for paper ballots
scanned by optical scanners, or if you are for hand counted paper ballots

[troubleinwinter]

4. "the counties only had about 5,000 - 7,000 registered voters"

Los Angeles County, California has 2,952,983 registered voters.

Cook County, Illinois has 1,383,712 registered voters.

Harris County, Texas has 1,920,875 registered voters.

But the challenge is to convince the election officials and law makers...

It would be interesting to know what these elections officials' reactions would be to organizing and overseeing hand counts in these counties.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

3. Chuck Herrin Paper Ballot Speech and Testimony in NC

Chuck Herrin gave a great HCPB speech at our rally at the state
capitol in November 2004.

Raleigh, NC 12/12/2004

My name is Chuck Herrin, and I'm going to start with something that you might not want to hear.
I'm not up here fighting for a Kerry presidency. John Kerry, who promised to fight for every vote, sent his 10, 000 lawyers and 52 million dollars elsewhere and then quietly gave up the next day. That's not the leader who is going to solve America's problems. Now, don't get me wrong- I'm no Bush fan either, since I am a true compassionate conservative who still believes in quaint ideas like fiscal responsibility, not engaging in nation building, and personal responsibility. If there were any justice in the world, McCain would have won in 2000 or barring that, Clark in 2004. We would have put someone who actually SHOWED UP for duty in charge of our nation in a time of war. But that didn't happen, both parties ran the wrong horses, and so here we are. There were very obviously problems in the recent election, but I would like to say that the recent election was not THE problem. The recent election is a SYMPTOM of the real problem, which is the shocking lack of integrity of our electoral process..

more here..
http://www.chuckherrin.com/paperballots.htm

Chuck's presentation to the North Carolina State Legislature:

My recent PowerPoint given to the NC Joint Select Subcommittee on E-Voting, January 7th, 2005. The first part talks about what we do in business vs what we do in e-voting, and the second part rips apart Diebold's vote tabulation software, showing it for the criminal piece of crap that it is.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/GEMSDemo.pps

Also by Chuck

The Effect of Computers on Vote Tabulation -
Part of my testimony to the state of NC. Slideshow.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/ComputersVoteTabulation.pdf

[Febble]

5. There are so many differences

between your constitution and ours that the electoral systems are difficult to compare directly. I wrote about some of the differences in a DKos diary last year:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/3/20/6453/39287

The key differences as far as voting is concerned is that we vote in constituencies, and that there is rarely more than one race per election.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

6. I've been thinking - (hit the deck)

While our ballot is extremely complicated, even with optical scan -
we could hand count all of the ballots for the presidential contest.

A precinct usually has about 1,500 ballots.

AT the end of the election night, when the polls close:

We could manually count those 1,500 ballots for the Presidential Contest.

If sorted out by that 1 contest, it would not take more than
about an hour max to count it twice and record the number.

If our ballots were made easier to read, we could more easily
count them.

Additionally, the ballots could then be sorted by other
contests, and counted that way.

But I don't preclude hand counting, but we might have to prioritize
it to the presidential election.

(edited for clarity)

[troubleinwinter]

12. "we might have to prioritize it to the presidential election"

Why?

Aren't ALL of our votes important? Senate, House, School Board. We should not have two different levels of reliability in the counting of votes.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

13. at least at first -but how would you do it

TroubleinWinter, what do you suggest, given we've come a long
way, but still have farther to go?


I believe that HR 550 (with improvements in the works) can
co-exist peacefully with the Kucinich bill that wants
full hand count of the presidential election.

But to HCPB 50+ contests at this time when
we don't have a simple way to do it -
could kill the whole deal.

Yes, you are right, CONGRESS is very important.

We had some very sick results for US Senate/President
in Wake County NC in 2004.

Look at the 2004 election results for Wake County:
177,324 votes for Bush, 177,324 votes for Clinton's sidekick
Erskine Bowles (running for US Senate)


HR 550 DOESN'T PRECLUDE OR PROHIBIT KUCINICH BILL

If people want to pass Kucinich's bill, it doesn't contradict HR 550.

You can run elections as per HR 550, and at the end of election night,
the presidential contest can be counted on the paper ballots at the precincts,
or by a team at the county BOE.

HAND COUNTED PAPER BALLOT ELECTIONS

HCPB for 50+ contests on the typical US ballot is not going to happen
until we completely change our entire system of voting,
including who we vote for, how often we vote, how direct our
representation is.

HCPB Work in countries that have single contest ballots, as in Canada,
the United Kingdom, and Germany.
We don't vote for parliament here, and we do (sort of) vote for President,
instead of having our congress select President.
(Although we do let the Supreme Court pick our President).

But I think the Kucinich Bill can fit like a square inside a square with HR 550,
since it only requires hand counting a single contest.

[troubleinwinter]

14. O.K. Ya sold me!

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

7. Anyone seen the German Ballot?

There is a piece circulating the internet now demanding
HCPB, based on the fact that other countries including Germany
use HCPB and easily.

Has anyone a photo of the German ballot, or information
on how many contests they have on their ballot?

Do they vote for President/prime minister or do they
vote for parliament/congress who elects their President/Prime Minister
for them?

[OnTheOtherHand]

8. here ya go

in German


or in English


These are both old, but I don't think the format has fundamentally changed. Two votes. I think basically half the Bundestag members are elected based on Column 1, and half are elected by proportional representation based on Column 2.

(EDIT TO ADD: Germany has separate elections for European Parliament. That ballot would be pretty simple, too.)

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

9. so US could switch to Parliament?

hey, we might end up with actual debates if
we switched from congress to parliament.

Hmm and does the German parliament pick the President or
Prime Minister of Germany, or do they hold a separate election?

[OnTheOtherHand]

10. Germany has a President and Chancellor...

According to Wikipedia (which usually gets the basics right), the presidency is basically a ceremonial position, and the president is elected by "a specially convened body called the Federal Assembly (Bundesversammlung)." The chancellor is elected by the Parliament (Bundestag) -- the details get a bit hairy, because the chancellor needs an absolute majority.

I don't know much, if anything, about elections at other levels of German government. I am guessing that they are scheduled separately.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

11. So far 3 of 3 HCPB countries elect parliament/mps not Pres/Prime Min

Well that certainly makes it easier.

Very simple ballots. Yep, would be pretty much impossible
to convince these countries that they need a machine
to count a ballot that has a single contest on it.

Hmmm. maybe we should quit trying to vote for 50+ contests,
just elect a parliament.

Or, we could use optical scanners, but require a full hand
count of presidential contest at end of evening.

And audit the rest.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

15. Here's a hand counted paper ballot in the US

Australian Ballot from a 1916 Democratic primary in South Carolina.

[kster]

16. I'd like to see what these ballot say

Could you help me out?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

17. Trouble posted those on another thread

I think they are a California ballot, but any state with
referendum could have monster ballots like those.

Our ballots in NC are almost insane, they have half a dozen
exceptions to our nutty straight ticket voting law,
which is another thing that should be banished from the
600+ pages of NC election law.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

18. but you still could count one contest on them by hand

If you only had to count one contest on these by hand,
say the presidential contest, it shouldn't take too many hours
to do.

Not the same thing as counting 50 + contests.

[troubleinwinter]

19. It is a sample ballot from Los Angeles Nov. 2006

It is from a precinct in the City of L.A.

There are 53 issues/races, but there are more than 53 to count, as some races have you pick multiple choices.

[troubleinwinter]

20. I got these from the Los Angeles County elections site

a coupla weeks ago. I reduced the size of the graphics, in order to save dial-up DUers from having to load TEN PAGES of a ballot.

What' on it is U.S. Senate, U.S. Representative, State Supreme Court Justices, State Senate, State Assembly, Court of Appeal Justices, State Measures, City, local issues and stuff like that. Things that one typically finds on one's ballot.

[troubleinwinter]

24. Are these images readable for you?

A Los Angeles November 2006 Sample Ballot-

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

21. 2006 and 1988 Mexican ballots

Here is a picture of a 1988 Mexican ballot that was among piles to be burned -

Electoral fraud, 1988 Mexican federal elections: sample burnt ballots
These ballots, found in charred piles along a roadside in Guerrero, and marked in favor of Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas and one of the parties belonging to his National Democratic Front (FDN), were incompletely burned because they had been at the bottom of the piles, where oxygen could not penetrate to complete combustion

http://worldpolicy.org/globalrights/mexico/1988-fraud.html

Here is a lady holding a Mexican ballot from the 2006 Presidential contest that
had been thrown away:

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2006/07/05/mexico3_narrowweb__300x365,0.jpg

July 5, 2006 Mexico: poll recount demand

Mexico's main leftist party demanded a ballot-by-ballot recount after the closest presidential race ever.

It claimed the voting was manipulated and renewing fears that its fiery candidate will launch violent street protests if he doesn't get his way.

A protester holds up a marked ballot paper she says was found in the street in an outlying district of Mexico City.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/mexico-poll-recount-demand/2006/07/05/1151778994718.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

22. Iraq Ballots in 2005 and 2006

Don't know how they counted it.
I believe it is one contest with multiple candidates/parties.

The recent 2006 elections in Iraq presented ballot designers with a unique problem. More than 200 parties or individuals registered to be listed on the ballot, a fact that created a typesetting dilemma for the one-page design. But each party or individual who registered also had to supply a logo by which they could be identified by illiterate voters.

Some logos were turned away, including a drawing of a rifle, a picture of a mass grave, and a representation of a Koran surrounded by a halo.

The result is a very involved ballot; a sample of the 2005 ballot is shown here. More than 72 percent of eligible voters registered so they could put their own very personal "logos"-their fingerprints-on record so they could vote.

http://www.logolounge.com/articles/default.asp?ArticleID=265

Feb 15, 2005 election for national assembly. The
party winning the majority would select the president.

"When the vote was certified Feb. 17, 2005, the United Iraqi Alliance, which carried the endorsement of top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, had won the majority of seats. But the alliance lacked the two-thirds majority needed to select the president, making coalition-building an essential task in forming the new government."

http://www.cbsnews.com/elements/2005/01/24/iraq/whoswho668877_0_0_intro.shtml

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

23. UK Ballots numbered to protect against fraud

The UK secures their ballot in a way similar to what Lynne Landes
has recommended, except that legal authorities have to allow it to be
utilized:

"The UK secret ballot arrangements are sometimes criticised because it is possible to link a ballot paper to the voter that cast it. Each ballot paper is individually numbered and each elector has a number. When an elector is given a ballot paper, their number is noted down on the counterfoil of the ballot paper (which also carries the ballot paper number).

This measure is thought to be justified as a security arrangement so that if there was an allegation of fraud, false ballot papers could be identified. The process of matching ballot papers to voters is only permissible if an Elections Court requires it, and this is an extremely unlikely occurrence. The legal authority for this system is set out in the Parliamentary Elections Rules in Schedule 1 of the Representation of the People Act 1983...

...Objections
Some people believe that the system of numbering ballot papers should be stopped.
They argue that it undermines the principle of the ‘secret ballot’, because
individual votes can be traced.
http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/files/dms/Ballotsecrecy_18706-6127__E__N__S__W__.pdf

Ballots in some US states are digitally tied to the voter during early voting.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

25. The Australian Ballot

and here's another one



more here

http://www.unc.edu/~asreynol/ballot_pages/australia.html

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

26. Russian Ballot

Official Results of the Presidential Elections held in 1996

http://www.aceeeo.org/members/russia/documents.htm

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

27. Ukraine Paper Ballot

A sample of a ballot paper for Parlamentiary Elections in Ukraine (year unknown)

/

http://www.aceproject.org/ero-en/search_materials_results/Ukraine/none/Ballot%20Papers