Possible use of Python for a voting machine demo project -- your feedback requested

[Paul Rubin]

"Alan Dechert" <adechert at earthlink.net> writes:
> The absentee system would work very much like the poll site system.  The
> voter would see exactly the same screens with either one.  The printout
> would look exactly the same.  The ballot electronic record would wind up in
> exactly the same format as poll site ballots.  Here are some advantages
> highlighted in the proposal:
> 
> · Voter does not need to plan
> · Avoids mailing of absentee request as request is made and granted
> on-the-spot
> · No need for the county to print and mail costly absentee ballot materials
> · Tabulation of absentee votes available on Election Day
> · Seamless integration with poll site system
> · Secret ballot and voter anonymity preserved
> · Greatly reduces potential for absentee vote fraud

Yes, that's much better than mail-in absentee voting.  Of course
polling stations would have to be installed at US embassies abroad,
military bases and vessels, etc.

> The most persistent type of corruption has to do with campaigns that
> overwork the absentee ballots -- helping voters make sure they vote.
> Sometimes it's a fine line.  A campaign worker might stop by an elderly
> voter to make sure s/he has mailed in the absentee ballot, and the voter
> asks for assistance -- or the campaign worker offers assistance.  How much
> assistance constitutes fraud where a voter is really not sure what to do?  I
> don't have any numbers but in 2000 a lot of older folks in Florida were
> getting assistance with obtaining and sending in their absentee ballots.

It was much worse than that, and it wasn't limited to older folks.
The Governor of Florida himself, Jeb Bush, sent letters to registered
Republicans on state letterhead encouraging them to cast illegal
absentee ballots:

  http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/nationworld/sns-flavotes.story

Xavier Suarez, the guy who was elected mayor of Miami by absentee
ballot fraud (he was thrown out of office a few weeks later when the
fraud was established) was apparently part of that operation and 
actually filled in absentee ballots for people in Miami-Dade County.

Then there was the massive doctoring of defective absentee ballot
applications--but only for one party--in Martin and Seminole counties
(a third degree felony in Florida, http://www.campaignwatch.org/semdtl.htm).

See

  http://www.failureisimpossible.com/floridafollies/absentee.htm

for links to some more stories.  Anyway you get the general idea.