>Better yet, what's your thoughts on internet voting? I read an article by Dick Morris where he was tauting it. Personally, I wouldn't trust it. We use a system in Memphis where you check in with the poll worker by showing your identification, they mark that you voted, then give you a key card. You take that card to the voting machine where you insert it, then vote through a touch screen system. Once the polls close, the votes total immediately. I like it much better than using something on the internet since it's a closed system.

I agree that we should stay away from Internet systems for now. Maybe later when intenet connections are as common as telephones and biometric id systems are standard. Even then I'm not sure that we can resolve the inherent conflict between protecting voter anonymity and ensuring that someone does not vote more than once.

I proposed this polling place system earlier:

1) You indicate your choices on a touchscreen board.

2) The machine prints a paper receipt with a pseudo-random ID number printed on it. The receipt lists all of your choices.

3) At the bottom of the receipt the random number ID is repeated by itself on a perforated portion.

4) When you leave the booth, you drop the receipt in a voting box, optionally removing and retaining the ID number.

You don't leave with anything to sell to prove your vote. But in the event of vote fraud, there is a considerable paper trail.

Direct recording tallies can be proofed against (or recalculated from) the receipts in the ballot boxes if needed.

Fraud involving simultaneous direct recorded totals and manufactured paper receipts could be exposed by printing a list of suspect ID numbers in the paper and asking voters who cast those numbers to come forward.

Peter