Voter sign in

[sandnsea]

I vote by mail so my signature is on the ballot. But if I recall, don't you have to sign when you vote? For machine voting, couldn't you count the signatures as the number of voters, to at least have some number that the machine votes should equal.

[jhgatiss]

1. In theory....

that assumes everyone votes on every issue/candidate which isn't always the case. And that also doesn't guarantee that someone didn't switch their intent by tampering with an optical scanner, tabulator, or the electronic voting machines that don't leave paper trails.

[sandnsea]

4. You sign in first

It's supposed to be the first thing you do, as I recall. It's been a long time. You sign the sheet at your precinct, then you pick up the ballot. It's a base number of voters that any machine has to match. At least at the precinct level.

[jsamuel]

2. Exactly, I have been saying the same thing...

They could just do that for a few small counties that had HUGE turnouts and see if the numbers are way off. Pretty easy way to prove voter fraud.

[truehawk]

3. These are the poll books

that Blackwell was refusing to let people see.

That is what I am going to do monday. Ask to total number of signatures. That should give us a good turnout number.
Which is where we start.

[sandnsea]

5. Really?

He wouldn't let people see them? That seems like a pretty quick way to figure out if the numbers add up. Count the signatures, provisionals and absentees returned. Then work from there. Was that reported somewhere?

[jhgatiss]

6. I still don't see how that would prove anything...

necessarily. In the Gahanna case it was obvious that there was a change/glitch because the numbers exceded registered voters. But if someone was just going into the tabulator and editing the database to move a few votes from Kerry to Bush then there's no way you would know if they made sure that the totals didn't exceed the number of votes previously recorded there. Follow me?

[jsamuel]

8. But I don't think that happened... Why you ask? well,...

Because of counties like Liberty County in Florida, which had a huge turnout in favor of Bush. If the numbers were changed, they were more likely to boost Bush, rather than to hurt Kerry. They hurt Kerry in the Dem counties by taking away votes or giving them to Bush. It is very possible that they did not know how many votes were going to be there in the end and they just added and subtracted from 2000, instead of doing a 1st class job of shifting from one candidate to another, leaving huge over and under votes that would only be reflected in a voter signature list.

[jhgatiss]

9. Don't turnout numbers...

reflect the numbers in the signature books? How else could you account for people who just don't vote for President or anything else for that matter?

[sandnsea]

12. By the ballot

You run through 10,000 ballots and come up with different totals for different elections. I think that's also how they come up with voting numbers, by the number of ballots they count. The undervote can either be ballots that weren't counted at all, or nonvotes for a particular office.

[sandnsea]

10. That's true

But we should still use everything we've got to eliminate as many methods of cheating as possible.

[demodonkey]

7. I am a poll Worker in PA, yes you have to sign in.

We do a count of those signed in and compare it to the "public counter" on our machines (BUT! We are on the old LEVER machines here for now, at least.) The poll book number MUST match the public counter or an explanation has to be submitted with the results. (For example, this time we had 2 more "voters" on the public counter due to a stuck handle on the machine, which we had to duly report to machine maintenance, and record the number of malfunctions as they happened.) Those old lever machines, God bless 'em are pretty darn reliable and hack-proof.

Am not sure how the new Black Boxes public counters work; if in software they could probably be screwed with (but the poll books could not, at least not easily.)

On Edit: The number of votes for any office should NEVER exceed the number on the pblic counter or the number of signatures in the poll book without some explanation being made. There COULD be less votes for a given office than the public counter shows, because some people don't vote for every office.

[sandnsea]

11. Recorded at the state level?

Do you submit the poll book numbers to the state too?

[demodonkey]

13. Poll Book goes to the county. They submit the number of voters...

who signed in, as well as the number of votes cast for each office, to the state, media, etc. The poll book also records how many D, R, and other party voters signed in. All that info comes in to the county and should be available.

[sandnsea]

14. thank you

So it would be pretty difficult to just miss a bunch of extra votes showing up in a machine or final tabulation. The only way they could cheat is by moving votes from one candidate to another, is that about right?

[jsamuel]

15. And the only way to audit a machine that was tampered with is to contact..

the voters who voted and ask them who they voted for.

[demodonkey]

16. They way we do it in PA, with our old lever machines here, YES...

Again, am not sure about how the Black Boxes work or how they sign in for other states.

But if there are paper sign-ins, you are correct -- nobody could just add a bunch of votes because when you cross-check the number of sign-ins to number of votes there can NOT be more votes than sign-ins.

To cheat, you would have to move votes from one candidate to the other. (or not record some of one candidates votes)