Reply #111: More than one precinct at one place CAN be done. Here's how...

[harmonyguy]

First off - I'm Canadian, and am mainly familiar with our system. I'm sure it's NOT perfect, but it seems to be simple and managable, without many of the headaches of the US system(s).

In Canadian Federal Elections the paper ballot is very simple - here's a sample:
http://www.elections.ca/yth/pdfs/offtheshelf_form9a_e.pdf

Every ballot is pre-numbered - twice. The ballots come from the print-shop padded into books of either 50 or 100 (can't remember which). When a voter recieves their ballot at the polling station, the poll officer places his/her initial on the back of the actual ballot and detatches the ballot from the book, leaving the stub with its number IN the book. The ballot is folded with the officer's initial visible on the outside. The voter takes the ballot, goes to the booth, unfolds the ballot and marks their selection, and refolds the ballot in the same way - officer's initials on the outside. The ballot is handed to the officer, who checks his/her initials, and then detaches the numbered counterfoil (second stub) from the ballot and offers the ballot back to the voter to deposit in the ballot box, or with the voter's permission directly deposits the ballot in the ballot box. It's this last step, where the officer checks for his/her initials AFTER the voter has made their mark that prevent the voting in the wrong precinct problem. By his/her initials, the officer will see that the ballot didn't come from his/her precinct, and will send the voter back to the right one - the one from which the voter obtained the ballot. (In the last Federal election, we had three polls (precincts) in one room, and had no problems. As the blank ballot was handed to the voter, they were instructed to bring the voted ballot back to the officer that gave it to them.

At the closing of the polls, the number of voters who voted are counted in the poll books, the stubs in the books of ballots are counted, the (now-removed) counterfoils are counted, and of course the ballots themselves are counted. Guess what?? They all match. Occasionally, a ballot with the counterfoil still attached will make it into the ballot box (not good), in which case there is a defined procedure for handling its removal once the ballot box is opened.

Ballot Box stuffing is practically impossible since there are actually 4 count checks, poll book count, ballot stub count, counterfoil count and ballot count, not to mention the check of initials by the poll-officer.

For that matter, we even have examples of what to accept and what to reject as marks on ballots.
http://www.elections.ca/yth/pdfs/offtheshelf_form22a_e.pdf

http://www.elections.ca/yth/pdfs/offtheshelf_form22b_e.pdf

The only technology involved is a writing stick and it doesn't even HAVE to be a #2 pencil. No walk-away reciepts, no cryptographic ballyhoo, and no machines. We're all done the count and listening to the results on the radio an hour or two later.

HG