Page 185 - Towards Trustworthy Elections New Directions in Electronic Voting by Ed Gerck (auth.), David Chaum, Markus Jakobsson, Ronald L. Rivest, Peter Y. A. Ryan, Josh Benaloh, Miroslaw Kutylowski, Ben Adida ( (z-lib.org (1)

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On Optical Mark-Sense Scanning

Fig. 1. An Australian secret ballot, that is, a ballot with the names of all qualified
candidates printed on it. This example is for a fictional and greatly simplified general
election with two different races on the ballot.

Ballot box substitution and Pollbook alteration allow the above check to be
defeated. To prevent this, all processes should be open to public observation and
where this is difficult, all materials should be in the joint custody of mutually
distrustful adversaries such as members of opposing parties. Complete records
of the chain of custody need to be maintained for all critical materials, and these
should be public.
Ballot alteration during the count has been reported in some elections. No
pens, pencils or erasers should be allowed within reach of the tellers who handle
ballots, and tellers should wear white gloves or accept manicures from adver-
saries. This latter measure prevents hiding bits of pencil lead under fingernails.
Clerical Errors can corrupt the count, and where small errors are common,
election manipulation can be disguised as error. To prevent errors in the count,
tellers should sort ballots by how they are marked and then count the number
of ballots in each pile. This procedure is comparable to the way large quantities
of money are usually counted. As with money, counting does not alter what is
being counted, so in the event of any controversy about the count, the process
can be repeated.
Biased Counting is possible. For example, tellers can strictly apply the law
on proper ballot markings for ballots they disapprove of, while generously inter-
preting voter intent for ballots they like. To defend against this, tellers should
work in pairs made of representatives of opposing parties. While sorting ballots,
they should sort disputed ballots separately from ballots they agree on. Disputed
ballots should be further segregated by the nature of the dispute. The official