how it works
With Vote Word, after you cast your vote, the electronic voting booth screen says:
“Thank you for voting! Your Vote Word is: pizza.”
That simple word, “pizza”, is then recorded in the computer’s memory along with your ballot selection(s). No one else gets that word at your polling location. No one knows what your word is, just as you don’t know anyone else’s Vote Word.
Later, at home, you can go online, look up your polling location and scroll through all the votes. You’ll see, listed alphabetically, the word “pizza” along with your ballot selections. You confirm that your selections were recorded correctly, and you can even check again if there’s a recount.
Imagine being able to look up your vote–and personally count all the votes in a local election. Consider how far this would go toward eliminating doubts about our voting process and restoring faith in the system.
Let’s say that Sally Smith and John Jones are running against each another in an election for U.S. representative from your congressional district. Your polling location is the elementary school in the town of Carlton.
When you arrive at your polling location, you sign in, as always. Then you proceed to the voting booth, which looks exactly like today’s electronic voting booths. As usual, you enter the privacy of the booth as a totally anonymous voter: the machine has no idea who is pressing the buttons.
You cast your vote for Sally Smith. The screen says, “Thank you for voting! Your Vote Word is: pizza.”
The voting machine has just given you a “Vote Word” that is unique to you. Remember that word, or write it down afterward. You’re done voting and exit the voting booth.
The only difference in the voting process is seeing a Vote Word appear on the screen.
What the voting software did was to take your Vote Word–“pizza”–and record it along with your vote. Only one vote at the elementary school has “pizza” associated with it.
When your vote has been counted, it appears on a website, along with all the others. The votes are arranged alphabetically by Vote Word. Scanning down the list of results at the elementary school, you find the word “pizza” and see that “pizza” voted for Sally Smith. And so you know that your vote was recorded and counted correctly. It’s that simple.
