[EM] voting reform effort in DENVER - PLEASE HELP

[Jan Kok]

On 6/11/06, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax <abd at lomaxdesign.com> wrote:

> The simplest
> form of Asset is actually standard single-vote with revoting allowed.
> This could be done with any election equipment.

Are you saying have multiple elections? (expensive & a hassle)
Or something like early voting where the polls are open for a week or
two? (in which case, how can you "take back" your previous vote, if
the voting is by secret ballot?)

> It is only the more
> complex forms of asset that require more complex counting. FAAV,
> Fractional Approval Asset, would use existing voting equipment but
> does require more complex calculation when the votes are summed.

Mechanical and other non-programmable voting machines can't handle FAAV.
Machines such as the Diebold Accuvote are programmed with an EPROM,
and that would need reprogramming to properly count the votes. I doubt
any existing voting machines are set up to do fractional approval as
you have defined it. Some voting machines allow you vote for up to N,
for multiwinner elections.

> It would be best, I'd suggest, if full ballot data is transmitted.

Sure. That seems to be how they do IRV elections, and at least some others.

I thought it was interesting that Burlington, Vermont BORROWED the
EPROM chips from Cambridge, MA to do their IRV election!

Cheers,
- Jan