I will reiterate a speculation I had on the military conduct of elections: There will be no mail ballots, only ballots in person. And for President, they will be write-in only, with manual counting and tabulation. No artfully-placed marker dots or hanging chads to exploit.
I'm not saying it will happen this way, but I think it would be very interesting if it happened this way.
The write in only part could have a problem with verification, but I do believe the entire country will be clamoring for the military to physically be at every polling location nationwide.
Maybe your write in portion could be both write in and fill in the box. That would stop a lot of shenanigans. They dont match, the ballot is tossed.
I see your point, but you are talking about a voter who is functionally incapable of writing. Let's use the backup plan of an approved "helper" who can write for the benefit of the dysfunctional voter. There are plenty of people who are without hands and may be physically unable to write...or to make other marks on paper.
I don't see how adding a box would help. If the written part was illegible, how can that validate which box was selected? The ballot would have to be tossed. But if the written part was legible, the box is not needed. It just adds useless complexity. Better to emphasize LEGIBILITY. Do you really think there would be a problem distinguishing between "Trump" and "Biden"?
There could be two proctors to agree on what the ballot contains and to enter the tally. If no agreement, the ballot is set aside for further adjudication if there is a voting margin smaller than the rejected ballots.
But the point is not to construct the system mechanics. The point is to eliminate machine reading of pre-constrained data entry modes. (In other words, defeat the fake insertions by inherent ballot design.) It may be possible to machine read a written name, but I think this is only possible with machines that have been "trained" to recognize handwriting from samples.
I will reiterate a speculation I had on the military conduct of elections: There will be no mail ballots, only ballots in person. And for President, they will be write-in only, with manual counting and tabulation. No artfully-placed marker dots or hanging chads to exploit.
I'm not saying it will happen this way, but I think it would be very interesting if it happened this way.
The write in only part could have a problem with verification, but I do believe the entire country will be clamoring for the military to physically be at every polling location nationwide.
Maybe your write in portion could be both write in and fill in the box. That would stop a lot of shenanigans. They dont match, the ballot is tossed.
I see your point, but you are talking about a voter who is functionally incapable of writing. Let's use the backup plan of an approved "helper" who can write for the benefit of the dysfunctional voter. There are plenty of people who are without hands and may be physically unable to write...or to make other marks on paper.
I don't see how adding a box would help. If the written part was illegible, how can that validate which box was selected? The ballot would have to be tossed. But if the written part was legible, the box is not needed. It just adds useless complexity. Better to emphasize LEGIBILITY. Do you really think there would be a problem distinguishing between "Trump" and "Biden"?
There could be two proctors to agree on what the ballot contains and to enter the tally. If no agreement, the ballot is set aside for further adjudication if there is a voting margin smaller than the rejected ballots.
But the point is not to construct the system mechanics. The point is to eliminate machine reading of pre-constrained data entry modes. (In other words, defeat the fake insertions by inherent ballot design.) It may be possible to machine read a written name, but I think this is only possible with machines that have been "trained" to recognize handwriting from samples.
The write in part was your idea not mine.
Yes...and all my discussion above was in defense of it. Thanks for taking it into consideration.