OTHER BASIC STEPS
TO SECURE ELECTIONS:
1.
Observers watching as much as possible,
and reporting to officials and the public.
1.
Copies of eligible voter
lists, with appeals of errors
2.
Reliably checking signatures
on mailed ballot envelopes,
with publicly known error rates.
3.
Publicly showing each ballot
box starts empty
4.
Rapid alternatives when machines
fail
or jam or some staff are absent
5.
Machines compatible with
local humidity
and moisture from wet hands when voters come in from the rain
6.
Adequate voting places, equipment,
parking and/or public transportation
7.
Convoy to take ballot box
securely to central counting/scanning station
8.
Notice and chance to testify
in decisions on provisional ballots
9.
Notice and chance to cure
signature defects on mailed ballots
10. Exit
polls can check results, though consistent differences in US are ignored.
11. Recounts, which
have a mixed history of success
in checking results
12. Care with indelible ink
13. Care with open
source and container
software
14. International
observers monitor some elections around the world and occasionally in the US
(1999, 2011
and 2017).
They can greatly increase trust if they are allowed to arrange for ballot scanning
and independent counts of the scans, while respecting local authority
over the elections.
15. Enforcement of campaign finance laws
16. Enforcement of election laws (US practice) (UK
examples)
17. Voter skepticism about political messages (UK
examples)
18. Partial list of problems 1982-2020