Count votes same way we count money

By JIM ADLER
GUEST COLUMNIST   Seattle Post Intelligencer   03 January 2005

Why can't counting ballots be as precise and mundane as counting money in the bank? Democracy can be messy, but that doesn't mean counting our votes should be, too.

Think about the trust we place in banks to handle our money properly. Trust in banks relies on transparency transparency made possible by customer verification and independent audit. To regain voter trust, our elections must now strive for similar voter verification and independent audit.

Recent experience in our state and across the country has shown how elections fall short. According to the American Bankers Association, electronic banking loses just $500 for every million. As a result, bank customers conduct millions of banking transactions every day with nearly universal trust.

Contrast this with elections where we lose one ballot for every 50 cast, according to the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project. Electronic banking is 40 times better than our elections. It's clear that there's room for improvement.

Looking beyond the numbers, there are too many stories about lost ballots. King County Council Chairman Larry Phillips famously stumbled upon his name on a list of mistakenly rejected ballots. North Carolina is holding a re-vote for state agriculture commissioner because of lost ballots. Overseas military ballots are routinely discarded. If banks were run this way, we'd still be stuffing our money in mattresses.

Yet we trust banks. How have banks earned our trust? There are three key elements we are all familiar with: accurate electronic transactions, customer verification and independent audit.

First, the vast majority of financial transactions are electronic because that is the most accurate way to count money. The practice of hand-counting dollar bills was abandoned decades ago. In elections, many still cling to the notion that hand-counted paper ballots are most accurate.

But this isn't just about electronic versus paper. The banking industry also relies on customer verification. Think about how you bank with an ATM, debit card or online: You get a receipt for every transaction. It's a "receipt" because you "receive" it and keep it to later reconcile with your monthly bank statement. If you see an error in your bank statement, the receipt provides proof of the transaction to the bank. In elections, you walk away from the polls with no way to know whether your vote was counted properly or even counted at all.

Finally, private firms and government regulators audit banks to independently ensure that everyone's money is properly handled. In elections, there is no such routine, comprehensive, independent audit only court challenges.

The good news is that there are new audit methodologies that can make voting as accurate and accountable as banking. VoteHere is just one company that is introducing this audit approach. It provides for a voter-verified paper trail and independent audit just like a bank.

Specifically, at the time you vote you are given a private, take-home receipt that preserves your secret ballot. After the election, you can check your receipt against the election results to make sure your vote was counted properly just like you reconcile your ATM receipts against your monthly bank statement. At the same time, any independent organization can audit all the votes to make sure the final count is right.

Every day, we trust millions of electronic transactions in banking, e-commerce and credit cards. This trust hinges on the transparency gained through customer verification and independent audit. Transparency in elections must be elevated to these same standards. Only then will we have trust in our elections that we can all "bank on."