Vote Sizing Institute Real change from within.

In times when we trust computers to help us manage our bank accounts, personal correspondence, news, entertainment, appliances, manufacturing, transportation, communication (gosh, have I forgotten anything?) it’s only natural to allow them to help us manage our democratic ideals too ... but that doesn’t mean that we can be negligent and entrust the entire voting process to computers. That’s why vote sizing is not electronic voting! In fact, vote sizing rejects the idea of trail-less, electronic touch-screen voting. Instead, the process as we envision it works like this:

At the polling station each voter receives a printed paper ballot, just like the regular ballot used in most countries today. Included on the ballot, which is personalized for each voter, is a barcode that when scanned reveals the person’s income, which has been gathered from tax records. Also included is a tear-off section which has the same barcode as well as typed-out personal information. This section is for the voter to retain as proof that the correct income information was attached to the corresponding vote. After tearing off the section with their personal information on it, the voter deposits the remainder of the ballot – which includes their vote and a barcode with their income information – but no identifying personal information – into the ballot box. Then, much like counting regular paper ballots; the ballots can be sent to a centralized center where an offline scanner can read the barcodes and size each vote accordingly. These kinds of scanners are inexpensive enough for even the poorest nations to use.

While computers would be used to size the votes in this way, there are proper safeguards maintained throughout each stage: Votes would still be cast in the traditional manner, counting would be conducted manually in an open way, there is full oversight and a paper trail for recounts when necessary, and - most importantly - a separation from a costly and volatile over-dependence on computers.