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My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

portal.drewdevault.com

11–20 of 358 posts

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#11

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

I agree with you, except that I saw all the "anachronistic processes" as meaningful and useful backup systems. Obviously online voting would be simpler for the voter, I don't think anyone would deny that, but you wouldn't get:

1. Your physical signature witnessed by a poll worker, and your identity and presence physically recorded in several different locations.

2. A physical paper ballot only accessible by poll workers.

3. A locally stored electronic ballot only accessible by poll workers.

4. Multiple physical receipts with your votes, distributed to many different physical locations only accessible to poll workers.

5. A trained poll worker available to help at the time and place that you vote.

6. An easy backup plan if something goes wrong.

Online voting is optimized for the happy path, but handling all the edge cases where something could go wrong is extremely difficult to implement and difficult for voters to understand. With online voting you need to ensure the security of the voter's physical device, operating system, web browser, each link in their internet connection, and all of those for the voting servers as well. After implementing processes to secure all of that, you need to communicate the security in a way that an average voter can understand it. You also need to think about what to do when a voter needs help, or their computer crashes mid-vote, or their power goes out, or someone sends them the wrong link, etc. etc. etc.

Current processes are a little more complicated up front, but processes for preventing and correcting errors are easy to implement and understand.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#12

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

The thing is, your grandma can watch a paper process, understand it, and verify that no shenanigans happened during the part that she was watching. But she can't do the same for online voting. She's not going to audit the software used. She's not going to verify network integrity, or authenticate packets.

The manual processes are much better for transparency and verifiability. And we really badly need those qualities right now, when you have to be able to prove to the other side that the vote was legit, and be able to prove that every claim otherwise is false.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#13
As a non-citizen who had a chance to observe how the process works in California, I was struck by how little emphasis is put in the secrecy of the vote. The whole system looks reasonable except for how easy it can be for poll workers to know what you voted for.

Beyond that, the system is clearly geared towards increasing participation and enfranchising as many people as possible (a good thing in a democratic system).

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#14

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

In Pennsylvania there was a web tool via the department of state to check if your mail in ballot was counted.

I can picture several ways to do a hybrid (mail + online) election like getting a code in the mail, voting online, then being able to ensure your ballot was counted correctly by using your code.

It seems to make a lot more sense than having states count for a week.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#15
This part seems incorrect:

> There are strict laws regulating police and poll workers while the polls are open. Police are not allowed within 100 feet of the polling location, unless they're actively voting or there on official business at the request of the election board. Additionally, anyone working at the polls in an official capacity is not allowed to wear any clothing with political messaging. One of the officers who showed up earlier in the day was wearing a hoodie with the American flag on it, and the US armed forces oath of enlistment printed in place of the white stripes. As they were leaving, I pulled the officer aside and asked him to remove the hoodie before making his next stop, politely explaining the law.

The linked PDF of rules says that the following isn't allowed:

> Wearing a t-shirt or button supporting a candidate, campaign, or political party (except voters in the act of voting)

The American flag with the military oath of enlistment isn't any of those. I'd probably get upset as well if some poll worker tried to tell me I'm not allowed to wear the American flag on my clothes.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#16

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

> Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

It isn't. Bruce Schneier has written about how online voting is a terrible idea in general [0], and how real-world attempts at it are often woefully incompetent. [1][2] Voting should remain paper-based.

[0] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2018/04/securing_elec...

[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/12/election_mach...

[2] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/02/voatz_interne...

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#18

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

It could be.

With voting I think the consideration is a barrier for voting. In many states you do not need to prove it to vote. Some states allow a normal vote and some states make them provisional. Still, no concrete identification is required when voting in most states. The voter is trusted to be who they say they are under possible penalty. This only applies to in person voting. Almost all states allowing mail in voting do not require notarization.

With electronic voting you have a huge barrier in that not everyone has access to the means to vote electronically. You disenfranchise a pool of voters.

https://ballotpedia.org/Voter_identification_laws_by_state

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#19
post #5

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

> Online voting seems like such a simpler approach. It is! Until you try to secure it. Then it isn't.

And even if you do secure it, if Joe McCitizen can't understand it, it does you no good.

Re: My experience as a poll worker in Pennsylvania

#20
post #9

While reading this I got a sense that all of these anachronistic processes would not exist if voting would be moved online. So many of the contentious issues we see here (mail-in ballots arriving late, machines not printing receipts, etc..) would simply not exist. Online voting seems like such a simpler approach.

I used to be in your camp, but ultimately I think the decentralization and heterogeneity of the election processes provides a non-trivial layer of "security by obfuscation". In other words, if we streamline the process too well, we'll find ourselves with a system with a handful of highly vulnerable points of failure. I would much prefer a seemingly archaic system that, at the cost of annoyances and delays, at least p…

Computers make it very easy to centrally modify/control information. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes it's a terrible thing.
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