[Yo-Yo]

They should even be allowed to have pens. Why would they need one?

Each ballot has a serial number. After the ballot is separated from the envelope and declared valid, that number must be recorded for a post-election audit.

If you vote in person, the same thing happens. The person who hands you a ballot after establishing that you are a valid voter will record the serial number of the ballot handed to you.

[nuconvert]

Then it should be a red pen

[Svartalfiar]

They should even be allowed to have pens. Why would they need one?

Each ballot has a serial number. After the ballot is separated from the envelope and declared valid, that number must be recorded for a post-election audit.

If you vote in person, the same thing happens. The person who hands you a ballot after establishing that you are a valid voter will record the serial number of the ballot handed to you.

I won't post my entire Voting Changes I Would Do if I Had Dictatorial Power for a Day blurb, I'll just give you the relative part:

- Every single ballot has a unique number for the voter, tear-off receipt like raffle tickets. Every submitted ballot is available online (www.vote.gov, easy!) so you can check to see how your vote was counted in the official tally. Only you know/have your number, so there's no outing of 'who voted how' info. This prevents mis-tabulations, votes being forgotten in a trunk of a car, etc etc. A high enough percentage of the populace will likely check, so faking any of this will be very difficult. Also, vote.gov shows complete totals for each city/county/precinct/etc, so anyone can see how many people voted in their area. [For now, metainfo saved on SD card on voting machine, uploaded later. Until we have a fully secure online-capable voting machine.]