Secure Voting

TRUST is the issue.

If Voters trusted the Federal Government, a national online Voting System would solve many of the problems with achieving Voting Security (with the notable exception of Gerrymandering).

While trust remains the key issue, a national online POLLING system could be used to compare reported votes to the advance online poll, just as exit polls are used for the same purpose.

The key advantage would be that reported vote trends that statistically differ from the advance online poll would be visible AS THEY HAPPEN, and better reveal the bad actors responsible.

As trust issues are eventually resolved, such as with higher-than-Military-Grade security for the polling system, draconian punishments for interfering with the system, etc., the polling system would one day become the official Voting System, and in-person hand-marked paper ballots would be the check on the system. In-person hand-marked paper balloting would be a civic and patriotic duty for every American, and we should consider fines for those who fail to participate in this check on the electronic system, except under specific strictly-enforced Federal exceptions.

The design of the Polling System would start out to be as all-encompassing as possible, and, where necessary, trimmed back to meet resources available.

The most advanced Polling System would be where anyone, anywhere in the world, could vote on any candidate or issue.

How many simultaneous users can current database technology support? That changes every day, and database access could be broken down into as many geographical areas as necessary, with the results reported to a central point. Of course, access for 500 million users in the US (10 billion users worldwide) would be ideal, to minimize the security issues with delegating control of access from outside the System.

How would we determine which votes "count"? This also is governed by the issue of Trust.

The total count will reveal only the level of activism by cheaters and their organizations, which would be of interest, but, of course, not binding on any election.

Only votes that have been verified as unique and eligible would be binding on an election. To achieve this status, we need to decide where we will place our Trust.

I nominate the Social Security Administration (SSA) as our Point of Trust, with adequate Congressional (no private) funding and implementation of the best security we can think of, specifically:

The SSA already has the capacity to be used by millions of citizens, and voting could be done at any time in advance.

The SSA already has the information necessary to verify each unique and eligible voter. The SSA has the age, address, and citizenship status of everyone with a Social Security Number (SSN), with which each person's applicable voting county (and precinct when available) and eligible ballot content can be determined.

A separate and independent Voting Security Team (VST) unit of the SSA will set up the database(s) and access thereto, and have ultimate responsibility for the security of the System. They will be at ground-zero for any issues with Voting Security.

The VST will be divided up into two Sections, VST-A and VST-B.

VST-A will receive the following data from the main SSA system: Each person's SSN, address, Voting Age Eligibility Code ("0" if under 18, otherwise "1"), and Voting Citizenship Eligibility Code (also a "0" or a "1"). No name or any other information.

VST-A will run each SSN through a random code generator, which will run software with initial coding parameters known only to select VST-A members on a strict need-to-know basis.

The resulting Voter Code will not be revealed to or accessible by VST-A members or anyone else other than VST-B members. The coding system will automatically report the Voter Codes to VST-B and VST-B only.

The Voter Code will consist of the following: The Voter's eligible State Code, County, Precinct Number (when available), Voting Age Eligibility Code, and Voting Citizenship Eligibility Code, followed by the unique previously random-generated code.

The Voter Code will not be revealed to anyone, even the Voter, unless requested by the Voter. The Voter Codes will be used soley for reporting total votes received for each candidate or issue by a verified unique and eligible Voter.

No court or other government agency will be allowed to require the reverse-engineering of the random-generated code, identification of the coding software used, or any of the parameters using to initiate the coding process. The identity of the Voter will not be revealed under ANY circumstances; not to law enforcement seeking an address, or anyone else.

The Sanctity of the Secret Ballot will be Honored.

The identity of Voters whose vote only counts as an Opinion will also be protected. Opinion Voters without an SSN will be provided the means to establish that their vote is unique, such as providing them with an Alternate "SSN" to be used for the coding process, based on Driver's Licenses, Birth Certificates, etc..

Voters will log onto the SSA main system as usual, with their SSA user id and password, and then will be provided a link to go OUTSIDE the SSA main system and be connected to the independent VST System to choose or update their votes and opinions.

The VST will maintain input screens for every official ballot used by every State (which numbered about 17,000 in 2020). A uniform format should eventually evolve for ballots nationwide.

(Please also see VSG for information regarding the use of "Air Gaps" and separate lines of commuication for sending and receiving, to secure electronic communications.)

The VST, with input from interested parties, will also maintain separate Special Issue ballots to make it as convenient as possible for both Eligible and Opinion Voters to express their opinions on as wide a range of leading issues as practical, and the OPTION to provide additional information that the Voter might consider relevant, such as actual age, education level, citizenship status, even national origin and religion, if, again, the Voter considers such information to be relevant.

The results of opinion votes will be invaluable to policy makers, and could even result in finally settling some highly-divisive issues, such as whether the government has any business interfering with women's reproductive rights, gun control, etc.. Public interest in limiting the power of each Senator's legislative vote to the number of citizens they represent, or who actually voted for them, would be worth looking into.

Cooperation by the States in providing complete and timely ballot information would be tied to any corporate subsidies they might seek, or other motivating factors. Late changes to a ballot will be taken into consideration when determining whether more intensive outside supervision of the local election process is called for.

A Voter's failure to maintain accurate voting eligibility information in the SSA could also be subject to a fine, but their vote will be considered eligible for any matters not affected by the inaccuracy.

For instance, if a Voter fails to update their address after moving to a new location within the same Precinct in which they are eligible, that failure would have no effect on the vote, but the cost of checking and verifying actual eligibility might be grounds for a fine.

If the inaccuracy indicates a potential attempt at fraud, the attendant investigation and related costs would be considered by the appropriate authorities.

Initially, as stated before, the results will be used to compare polling results to official election vote reports, as well as to establish actual preferences of the general public.

The effects of Gerrymandering would also be brought to the attention of the voting public.

Eventually, there will be a vote on whether to make the SSA system the official election system, and use hand-marked paper ballots as the ultimate check on the security of the system.

Please also see VSG for other ideas and comments on Secure Voting and Gerrymandering.



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