Radical? Simplistic? Techo-phobic?

The truth is that elections are simple to rig and this alone is not a full solution. But it is a start. And it is an admission that there are problems.

For valid elections a few things must be guaranteed:

• A secret ballot - there must be no way for anyone to find out how someone voted (and ideally even if they voted - blank cast ballots and votes should be counted).
• One person, One vote - this must temper the need to tell whether someone even voted.
• An accurate count and full reporting - the main reason for paper ballots so that representatives of the candidates and issues on a ballot may count and if necessary recount the ballots.

But, you say, we must know the results the next day!
NO - this is not a football game, there are usually weeks in which to count and recount the votes.
If the media insists on next day results, let them return to exit polling which might also help show up vote rigging.

Some voting machines prevent spoiled ballots by preventing voting for more than one candidate!
The spoiled ballot concept is wrong. Count all votes or the lack of votes, period.

Paper ballots are more expensive to handle and may require more people!
Yes. Aren't elections important enough to do right.

But can't these issues be addressed with voting machines?
They could be but are not. We already have voting machines that give us no way to tell if any of the votes represent what was really cast. There is only the word of the manufacturer.

In the end it is the confidence of the voters in the whole election process that is at stake. The survival of this republic based on representative democracy demands that we start election reform NOW! The most visible and the quickest way is the return to paper ballots.

Those who cast the votes decide nothing, those who count the votes decide everything. - Joseph Stalin (1879-1953) dictator of the USSR for almost 25 years

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