If I were in charge of the organization of an election I WOULD:

1. use the old traditional paper ballots
2. automatically enrol into electoral lists ANY citizen having the rigth to vote
   Such lists whould be managed by local authorities: moving citizens would be automatically deleted from the list of the place they leave and enrolled into the list of their new place of residence. People would have their rigth to vote without doing anything: this whould bring more people to vote.
3. facilitate the act of voting
   • in case many elections were held together each election would have its own ballot paper printed on a differently colored paper. Electors would be less confused because they could prepare at home the way they want to vote: vote X on the green ballot paper and vote Y on the yellow one.
   • print ballot paper would be as simple as possible
     The shape, the colors and the quantity of printed text have a great impact on the readability of the ballot paper: see at the end of the page a couple of examples! Properly designed ballot papere can greatly improve the possibility people (especially disabled) have to vote according to their true will. For istance Braille text can be "punched" under the printed text.
4. facilitate the access to voting
   • special facilitation would be arranged for people in special situation like hill people not able to leave their home or the ospital, prisoners (if they are allowed by law to vote), forces ...
   • the day of the election would be national holiday to help working people to go to vote
   • reduced transportation fares qould be available for people going to their place of residence to vote
5. use transparent plastic boxes to keep voted ballot papers
   the public whould be able to see them all the time
6. scrutinize all the ballot papers into the open
7. choose scrutineers at random among electors
   and allow candidates's representatives to be part of the scrutiny.
8. allow people to record results at each polling station
   so that parties can tally them up and compare their results with the official results.
9. keep the voted ballot papers for several years
   until the last recount (if any) will be done

If I were in charge of the organization of an election I WOULD NOT:

1. outsource any of the electoral procedures to private companies
   Too many people (and lobbies, and parties, and criminal and terroristic organization, and counties...) are interested in making fraud and altering electoral results!
2. care how long it takes to have the final result.
   Despite of all the pressure media put on electoral organization to have results in a hurry, I would take as long as necessary: better later with certain results than sooner with uncertainty!
   Democracy is not a joke or a commercial to be broadcasted within certain time limits.

this is an absentee ballot: please note that many electios are on the same ballot paper making a great confusion for the elector. Please note the missing arrows pointing to BUSH-CHENEY is a real error (not a joke) occurred on many ballot papers.

 

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. You are free to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to make derivative works under the following conditions: 1) You must give credit to the original author (Emanuele Lombardi) and cite the url http://www.electronic-vote.org ; 2) you may not use this work for commercial purposes; 3) If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a licence identical to this one.