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New Idea: A Foolproof Method for Preventing Voter (Election) Fraud

By Howard Charles Best, March 28, 2006

(LLBest.com, )

My Background

For seven years, I was in the US Naval Reserve, and was on active duty for two years (1968-69), stationed in Washington DC (with a Top Secret security clearance), reaching the rank of Lieutenant, JG.

I have an Applied Physics degree from Michigan Technological University (class of 1967) and have worked as a computer programmer for most of my adult life. I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world, such as Consolidated Edison/Citibank/General Electric in New York City and Ford/General Motors in Detroit. I specialized in coming up with unique, free-format, user friendly data input languages.

During the mid to late 1980s, I was the “Michael Dell of Detroit,” having started an incredibly successful clone computer business which resulted, in 1991, with my picture being on the front page of the Detroit Free Press!

Because of my lifetime of military/computer/engineering experience, I feel that I am uniquely qualified, thanks to the advent of modern computer technology, to come up with a foolproof method for preventing voter fraud.

Introduction

Low tech (paper ballots) is not the solution. The problem is, we are not high tech enough!

After an election is over, election fraud can be investigated by making sure that the total number of votes equals the total number of people on the list of people who voted, that all of the people on that list actually voted, that there are no duplicate names on the list, and that everyone on the list is qualified to vote.

The Problem

But how do the investigators know whether or not some of the ballets were destroyed and fraudulent ballots substituted? This is even more of a problem with electronic voting, because there is no “paper trail.”

The Solution

Use computerized, networked, touch-screen electronic voting, but after each person finishes voting, a unique, randomly generated “reference number” appears on the screen! There would be no way to link a particular reference number to a particular voter, so everyone’s vote would still be confidential.

The voter could simply ignore the number, he could memorize it, he could write it down, or, if he wants hard copy, he could photograph the screen. The number would stay on the screen until the voter touches “Done” or opens the curtain to leave the voting booth.

Then, at his leisure, he could go on the Internet, look up the reference number, and verify that his votes were recorded correctly. A complete list of all of the votes would be made available for viewing/downloading.

Election investigators and the media could then interview people who had verified their vote in this way to make sure that there were no discrepancies.

Using this unique method of recording votes, voting could safely be done via the Internet, thus facilitating absentee voting without any fear of “ballot stuffing.”


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