The Public Ballot

In a Columbus Dispatch article this morning, Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (and company) advocated the use paper ballots (versus electronic) for provisional voting. More interestingly, she had this to say about the electoral system:

"The biggest concern I have here, which I am trying to protect, is the secrecy of the voter's ballot. I've got to make sure the system is one people have absolute trust in."

Well, that sounds good, I guess. In discussing provisional ballots, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Board of Elections said,

"...records linking voters' names and identifying codes are kept separately -- in buildings miles apart -- from voting machine paper tapes printed with those identifying codes and voters' ballot choices" (paraphrased by Dispatch author Barbara Carmen, and quoted by me).

Ha! Sounds like our next project.

Thanks to James Moyer for the heads-up.