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Other than putting up some Halloween lights*, I spent all of today looking up election-related things.
I had intended to finish deciding who to vote for in the school board election which is the last thing I need to do before going out to vote absentee-in-person, but I didn't even get around to that.
(*Doing so made me realize I badly want a solid-green LED light strand. Blue or aqua ones would be nice too. And more orange ones, maybe yellow too. I need other colors to balance out all these red and purples! I talked myself into moving the one orange strand outside for Halloween, by saying I'd put up the white falling icicle ones inside instead. But the latter were too distracting inside, so I took them down again. I also took down the rest of the incandescents, which were half-burned out anyway.)
.
South Carolina's new voting machines which we got last year let you make your selections on a touch screen. They print out a paper ballot which you feed into a scanner. One thing that bothered me in the primary earlier this year, was that scanner. It didn't seem clear which way you had to place your ballot on it, face-up or face-down. I thought I remembered scanning mine face-up, which seems bad from a privacy perspective since everyone carries their ballot from the voting machines to that centrally-placed scanner. But when I asked Qiao, he said he'd been told to turn his face-down.
That made me wonder, what happens if you turn the ballot the wrong way? Does your vote end up not getting counted??
Based on the below info, I'm not the only one who's been concerned about this. But it seems that maybe it doesn't matter which way you turn it; it may scan both sides.
Doublecheck that ballot: Controversial voting machines make their primary debut in South Carolina
This article reminds you to check that your printed ballot lists your votes correctly before you scan it, in case of foul play or other machine problems. (You can check the names that are printed out; barcodes are also printed but you can't tell if those really correspond to your candidates - that's another thing that bothers me about this voting system.***)
A red flag for upcoming elections: South Carolina debut's of new voting system plagued by problems (2020/03/04)
Instructional Video on how to use the voting machines - from what I can tell, this shows that when the ballot is printed, the cut corner is on the upper right of the side that has the text on it. The ballot is then inserted into the scanner with the cut corner in the upper right, ie. face-up.
South Carolina voters will now use paper-based system
South Carolina’s Paper-Based Voting System
Both of the above pages say that ballots should be placed *face-down* on the ballot scanner.
Poll Manager's Handbook (SC Election Commission - this handbook PDF has all kinds of good info** about election procedures at the polling stations.
It indicates that ballots should be placed face-down on the scanners.
Precinct Scanner and Tabulator DS200® - this is the ballot scanner being used.
DS200 Precinct Ballot Scanner Election Day Training Manual
.
Unrelated to the above...
5 mistakes that can disqualify your November mail ballot and how to avoid them
How States Verify Voted Absentee Ballots
What, really?? They compare your signature?? My signatures can be quite inconsistent.
**Such as if the poll worker doubts your identity, they will first ask for another qualifying photo ID. So if you have more than one ID, it may be a good idea to bring both when you go vote.
"The manager must verify that the photograph on the qualifying ID is that of the person seeking to vote. Additionally, the signature on the voter’s ID should be checked against the voter’s signature on the poll list."
***Update: Based on New Voting System FAQs:
I'm looking forward to seeing how the images are provided to the public. It should be possible to use OCR to count how many ballot images contain each candidate's name. So maybe even someone like me could run the images through some utility to check that at least my own precinct-level results match up with the ballot images. Assuming I could do that, someone with access to more processing power and storage space might do the same thing for the whole state's ballots.
It still might be theoretically possible for the scanner software to be compromised, such that the stored images wouldn't match the actual ballots that were scanned. But that seems less likely to me than other vectors of attack or other kinds of software problems.
Update, 2020/11/03:
Insert face up or face down? Officials say ballots placed in scanner will be counted either way
"Ballots can be placed in the scanner face up, face down, or backwards," said Chris Whitmire of the SC Election Commission.
I had intended to finish deciding who to vote for in the school board election which is the last thing I need to do before going out to vote absentee-in-person, but I didn't even get around to that.
(*Doing so made me realize I badly want a solid-green LED light strand. Blue or aqua ones would be nice too. And more orange ones, maybe yellow too. I need other colors to balance out all these red and purples! I talked myself into moving the one orange strand outside for Halloween, by saying I'd put up the white falling icicle ones inside instead. But the latter were too distracting inside, so I took them down again. I also took down the rest of the incandescents, which were half-burned out anyway.)
.
South Carolina's new voting machines which we got last year let you make your selections on a touch screen. They print out a paper ballot which you feed into a scanner. One thing that bothered me in the primary earlier this year, was that scanner. It didn't seem clear which way you had to place your ballot on it, face-up or face-down. I thought I remembered scanning mine face-up, which seems bad from a privacy perspective since everyone carries their ballot from the voting machines to that centrally-placed scanner. But when I asked Qiao, he said he'd been told to turn his face-down.
That made me wonder, what happens if you turn the ballot the wrong way? Does your vote end up not getting counted??
Based on the below info, I'm not the only one who's been concerned about this. But it seems that maybe it doesn't matter which way you turn it; it may scan both sides.
Doublecheck that ballot: Controversial voting machines make their primary debut in South Carolina
This article reminds you to check that your printed ballot lists your votes correctly before you scan it, in case of foul play or other machine problems. (You can check the names that are printed out; barcodes are also printed but you can't tell if those really correspond to your candidates - that's another thing that bothers me about this voting system.***)
A red flag for upcoming elections: South Carolina debut's of new voting system plagued by problems (2020/03/04)
These issues were atop other concerns noted, such as inadequate privacy screens surrounding touch screens, conflicting instructions from ES&S on which side of the ballot card was to be scanned.
...
But the voter had a question. Should he slide his ballot into the scanner face up or face down? Killoy replied face down, for privacy — even though some ES&S materials had said face up.
...
He would also receive phone calls from national groups like Common Cause and the League of Women Voters asking whether the new scanners were properly reading the ballot cards—due to ambiguity about which side should face up. (He believed it didn't matter.)
Instructional Video on how to use the voting machines - from what I can tell, this shows that when the ballot is printed, the cut corner is on the upper right of the side that has the text on it. The ballot is then inserted into the scanner with the cut corner in the upper right, ie. face-up.
South Carolina voters will now use paper-based system
South Carolina’s Paper-Based Voting System
Both of the above pages say that ballots should be placed *face-down* on the ballot scanner.
Poll Manager's Handbook (SC Election Commission - this handbook PDF has all kinds of good info** about election procedures at the polling stations.
It indicates that ballots should be placed face-down on the scanners.
Precinct Scanner and Tabulator DS200® - this is the ballot scanner being used.
DS200 Precinct Ballot Scanner Election Day Training Manual
"The DS200 can accept and scan ballots inserted in any direction."
...
"The DS200 precinct tabulator can be coded to detect and notify the voter when it encounters a blank ballot. The display will indicate that no votes were detected on the ballot and offer the voter two choices, Accept or Return. "
[ "can be" is underlined, meaning I suppose that by default, it doesn't necessarily notify you? ]
...
"Some error messages related to the ballot will instruct the voter to turn over the ballot and try again."
.
Unrelated to the above...
5 mistakes that can disqualify your November mail ballot and how to avoid them
"Thirty-one states now use signature verification to confirm the authenticity of voted ballots...
election officials cross-check the signature a voter used to sign their ballot envelope to see if it matches the voter's most recent signature on file with the elections office, the Department of Motor Vehicles, or another government agency."
How States Verify Voted Absentee Ballots
What, really?? They compare your signature?? My signatures can be quite inconsistent.
**Such as if the poll worker doubts your identity, they will first ask for another qualifying photo ID. So if you have more than one ID, it may be a good idea to bring both when you go vote.
"The manager must verify that the photograph on the qualifying ID is that of the person seeking to vote. Additionally, the signature on the voter’s ID should be checked against the voter’s signature on the poll list."
***Update: Based on New Voting System FAQs:
"the SEC will make scanned images of all ballots cast in statewide elections available to the public. The use of paper ballots combined with this level of transparency makes it possible for anyone to do their own count of the paper ballots to verify results."
I'm looking forward to seeing how the images are provided to the public. It should be possible to use OCR to count how many ballot images contain each candidate's name. So maybe even someone like me could run the images through some utility to check that at least my own precinct-level results match up with the ballot images. Assuming I could do that, someone with access to more processing power and storage space might do the same thing for the whole state's ballots.
It still might be theoretically possible for the scanner software to be compromised, such that the stored images wouldn't match the actual ballots that were scanned. But that seems less likely to me than other vectors of attack or other kinds of software problems.
Update, 2020/11/03:
Insert face up or face down? Officials say ballots placed in scanner will be counted either way
"Ballots can be placed in the scanner face up, face down, or backwards," said Chris Whitmire of the SC Election Commission.