"E-chip" {RFID} RADIO track every paper ballot!

[oscar111]

They plan to cheaply track every store item sold, with electronic chips stuck to them.

Why not embed the paper of paper ballots with such 'RFID' chips... so auditors could easily find your paper ballot later, if need be.

Ballots HAND COUNTED, as in Canada, and PEN MARKED, as in canada. Chip only for audit later, not for official tally of vote.

Also would be serially numbered chips, so auditor could discover
1. added ballots
2. missing tossed ballots.
3. find your ballot to see if it was added in the hand tally .. added up in the wrong column.. bush not kerry.

Embed chip in between two paper layers, so GOP agents cant dig it out or replace it without paper damage. Make digigging it out so laborious they cannot do many of them.

Details may need refinement, but the general idea is great.

PS i am pretty sure the chips usually rest inactive, till a probe's radio wave hits it.. then the chip's tiny battery surges to life and emits a weak coded signal. The nearby probe then receives the signal and displays the coded identifying number.

RFID stands for ... something like.. radio frequency identification. Anyone know for sure?

Grocers made the news last week announcing they plan to use chips on every item to learn who buys what. So must be cheap chips.

[jsamuel]

1. Great idea!!! - How much would the cost be?

[lapfog_1]

4. Current technology

allows them to be "printed" right on the ballot, for about $.09
per tag. The reader costs about $3,000 or so and includes a
100baseT ethernet interface for easy interface.

The tags only work to a range of a few meters from the reader
since they are passive (requiring no power).

[oscar111]

5. cost $9 million for hundred million voters

Current cost of recount in OH is IIRC, one and a half million.
NC said would cost three mill torecount.

If two mill / state is cost of an election, then now elections cost a hundred mill.

Chip would raise election price nine percent, and end election theft and rule of eternal GOP.

[jsamuel]

9. Well, if we can not buy voting machines, then we would actually save money

[oscar111]

11. Great point! V Machines have warehousse storage costs too. Truck cost too

...

[rooboy]

2. It's a good idea.

We have serial numbers on our ballot forms over here, which makes one feel somewhat reassured.

[oscar111]

3. cost lo enough that stores plan to use. Cost of stolen election very hi

Weigh the cost of use against the cost of eternal GOP rule via eternally stolen "elections".

Cheap.

Actually i think stores already have some form of chip. Drugstore items all have bulky stickon labels that make a huge reader near the door 'BEEP" if you did not pay. So cheap enough when weighed against shoplifting.

[oscar111]

7. roo, you must be in australia

right?

[rooboy]

19. Yep n/t

[anamandujano]

15. Like a checkbook

all ballots should be accounted for, voided if messed up in any way and kept as records

[UL_Approved]

6. This is already done in some bookstores

A tuned and coded metal resonance strip is embedded within a barcode tag. This is to serve two purposes:

1. Consolidate the tag and barcode
2. Hide the tag to keep people from removing it

The tags are then read by a door scanner to detect books that have not had the tags deactivated. This is a more passive system than individual serial numbered tags, but it involves some identification. Embedding RFID tags would only require a slight redesign of the tags to accommodate implantation in a paper substrate instead of tissue. This would cost money up front for the technology, but it would be no more expensive than currently developed technology. A factory would be required to assemble paper ballots to interleave the proper printed serial numbers with embedded RFID tags of the same number. This is a project worth pursuing.

[oscar111]

8. moved by oscar

w....

[oscar111]

10. PAPERTRAIL with duplicate chip

if desired, this might be done also:

Each ballot would have a perforated tear-off strip, with a duplicate chip embedded in it.

Voter would tear off the unique strip, and take it home.

Auditors later could read your strip and look for the ballot that corresponds to it. If not found, your ballot was stolen or lost.

The search would be speedy if the Auditors first scanned all the ballots cast, en masse, generating a list of all chip numbers.

As i have said, all political parties must be part of Vote Commissioner Boards, never ONE Mr. Blackwell... and these parties would watch all chip scanning.. bringing their own scanners if desired.

To prevent tricks when creating the chipped ballots, all political parties must have the right to electronically inspect stacks of blank ballots before voting begins. And, to have surprise inspections of the chipped ballot factories, repeatedly.

To also guard against trickery in the chips, the old fashioned Canadian "Pen marked paper ballots, Hand counted" idea .. would remain the basic vote counting idea. We all trust that more than anything electronic.

Chips would just be an "add-on" way of checking 4 several kinds of tricks, like box stuffing or ballot burning. Paper totals would be used to check against chip totals, and vice versa. Many cross-checks now become possible.

I have no idea how copywrite/patent works on forums, but if possible, i now copywrite/patent this idea as i described it in this whole thread, and any variations on it. ©November18,3:48amEST2004.

OSCAR111

[UL_Approved]

13. That is the key:

Getting a voting receipt. That is an independent form of ballot. It shows how you voted. Making backup records is a great way to pull this off. Even the stub is great for getting this taken care of. Keep on it.

[jsamuel]

14. It would make more sense to me to have the tabs impounded together rather

than giving them to each voter. The voters would throw them away, loose them, and God knows what else. If they are impounded, that would be a much better way to keep them together and out of elected officials' hands.

[UL_Approved]

16. Some receipt is needed

There needs to be an independent way of keeping track of votes. The voters need to be the ones who do this. Yes, impounding stubs is a good idea for organization, but it still has the same problem: tampering with by "officials". That is one of the things that was done more so in the past, before "paperless" ballots. Just remember that if we have a receipt, they won't be able to hide ballots or alter them.

On another subject, a website could be started that took down and tallied votes submitted by online participation. The election receipt would be used as the login and the voter would re-enter the results for independent confirmation.

[rooboy]

20. Any kind of vote record that is taken away is a bad idea.

The biggest principle involved is to ensure that votes remain SECRET. If you want verifiable duplicates, that's fine, but no voter should be allowed to leave with a record of their vote in hand. This takes part of the process away from the eyes of scrutiny, and leaves the voter open to intimidation and fraud.

[ewulf]

12. Great Idea!

maybe the voter verifiable paper trail from the electronic voting machines could have chips too (if we deign to keep these expensive devices we already bought)?

[Cronus Protagonist]

17. Cool, I'm going to start a scanner company

So I can get onto the software that counts the votes. Should be worth a few million bucks to the republicans to ensure thay they have the same control over the counting equipment.

[oscar111]

18. Cronus,your post unclear: I dont use scanner for hand count

The chips are read by a probe and all political parties would have their own, to prevent tricks at that point.

Tho i think you really meant something different.. you plan to start a company and then sell it to the worried gop, if i read you correctly?

[Cronus Protagonist]

21. It was a joke.

I proposed it a few days back. The scanners would be fixed, of course, and entire ballot boxes could be spoofed with a few hidden compartments or access to the software or access to the scanner hardware.

People would have their votes rejected due to bad scans, someone with a rogue RFID might stand close by and prevent people from voting, and so on.

What's wrong with paper and ink pen on its own? I don't see the need or improvement in having an RFID embedded.