by Lynn Landes

The problem is worldwide. From the Ukraine to the United States, many voters no longer believe that their votes are counted correctly. And that's regardless of whether paper ballots or voting machines are used. The problem is the "secret" ballot. Secret ballots are anonymous ballots. They can be easily replaced, altered or destroyed, particularly if voting machines are used. Even if voters 'verify' their ballots and even if audits are performed, widespread vote tampering can still occur with relative ease and little risk of discovery because there still remains no effective method to 'certify' the authenticity of ballots, no way to identify an individual ballot and link it to an individual voter. With few exceptions, election officials around the world are certifying election results based on anonymous and untraceable ballots. And contrary to a growing legion of election statisticians, exit polls are not an adequate check on election results. It's ridiculous when you think about it, using anonymous exit polls to verify anonymous ballot results. The entire voting process should be 100% transparent. To that end, I am proposing a protocol for Open Voting with Total Transparency (OVTT)...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov05/Landes1105.htm