voter claims they didn't vote

["Ken Clark" <ken@gesn.com>]

I have thought about this issue a number of times in the past -- it came up again today at Virginia cert.  What is the standard operating procedure if a voter comes back to the poll worker with their smart card and claims it isn't working?  Well, we all know the answer to that:  we burn them a new card.  Problem is, the voter might be lying, and wants to vote again.

 

From a practical standpoint its this is really not a problem.  I think everyone would agree this is a pretty ineffectual way to stuff a ballot box.  I do worry a bit about having to explain this reasoning to John Stossel though.

 

The only practical suggestion I can think of is to timestamp the voter cards when the ballot is cast.  Inserting a voted card would pop up a message saying that the card was voted and when.  A poll worker would then know that the ballot was just cast.

 

For now I suspect we will continue to pretend the issue doesn't exist.  It is worth thinking about though.  Any other practical suggestions on how we might handle this are welcome.

 

Ken