No, you don't want names and addresses on the ballots, that opens the door wide for tyranny.
What can be done is for each ballot to have a serial number, and for the serial numbers to be marked first, when a ballot is handed to a voter, and second, when the ballot is turned in for the count. Each person would have to show an ID to receive a ballot, but the serial number would not be linked to the person's name.
Any serial numbers not used at the time the polls close would become invalid at that time.
There are so many technologies in use for validation of documents such as driver's licenses--it is ridiculous that ballot counterfeiting should be so easy.
“There are so many technologies in use for validation of documents such as driver’s licenses—it is ridiculous that ballot counterfeiting should be so easy.”
But securing voting integrity gets into the area of racism, white nationalism, white privilege, holdover form Anglo-Saxon prejudice, and according to Obama, everyone becomes pure and sinless when it comes time to vote and it is crude and boorish to suspect voter fraud, ever.
Not sure I agree about the tyranny. Having a link from each ballot back to who it was issued to seems like the only way to be sure no more than one ballot was cast by each person. Otherwise somebody could show up and demand a provisional ballot claiming they lost theirs or never received it and there would be no way to verify their original wasn’t already cast. Who/what they voted for doesn’t need to be linked to anything (except the totals), but we need to know the ballot was used to prevent duplicates. If there is no record of who voted for what, I don’t see the opportunity for tyranny.
I envisioned that the ballot would be mailed out attached to the voter guide, which obviously has the name and address on it. Then people would fill out the ballot at home, bring the whole thing to the polling place, show their ID matches the name and address on the voter guide, detach the ballot and insert it into the machine reader or ballot box.
The ballot would need to have a barcoded unique serial# in order to use the correct key to interpret it as well as be sure it is the correct unique ballot for that voter. No two ballots should have the questions or possible choices in the same order — that would prevent anyone using a template to rapidly fill out a bunch of unclaimed ballots.