[EM] 3ballot - revolutionary new protocol for secure secret ballot elections

[mrouse1 at mrouse.com]

(I sent this yesterday morning, but unfortunately I cut and pasted
election-methods-bounces at electorama.com instead of
election-methods at electorama.com. Anyway, it still seems on-topic.)

I read through "Rivest-TheThreeBallotVotingSystem.pdf," and I was
wondering one thing. It says:

To vote FOR a candidate, you must fill in exactly two of the bubbles on
that candidate's row.
You may choose arbitrarily which two bubbles in that row to fill in. (It
doesn't matter, as all three ballots will be cast.)

To vote AGAINST a candidate, you must fill in exactly one of the
bubbles on that candidate's row.
You may choose arbitrarily which bubble in that row to fill in. (It
doesn't matter, as all three ballots will be cast.)

Why not have ballots pre-printed with randomly filled bubbles (or
pre-punched chads), where there is exactly one filled bubble in each
row? Voting would be simply finding an empty bubble next to a
candidate's name and filling it in. Voters could easily verify that
there is only one vote next to each name if they wished (going down the
row with a piece of paper would be sufficient to tell at a glance), but
they wouldn't have to spend all their time in the voting equivalent of
an SAT test.

In addition to randomizing the filled bubbles, you could ensure that
each ballot could be uniquely identified (no two ballots have the same
bubble order). This order could replace the ballot ID number, and a
person could use this to search through the list on the internet to
verify their ballot was counted. In a plurality election, mandating that
there were at least three differences in bubble order for each ballot
would ensure that no two ballots were identical when turned in, and if
there are too few candidates to do this you could add a randomized ID
number to the bottom to ensure uniqueness. In an Approval election,
there would be no way to ensure each ballot is unique without such an ID
number, but you could still make certain the starting bubble order was
not only randomized, but also started out as different as possible from
all other ballots.

I might be overlooking something, but I thought I'd toss out this
suggestion and see if it would work.

Michael Rouse
mrouse1 at mrouse.com