I’m kind of jumping in here, but I have one major concern with giving voters copies of their completed ballots: it undermines the principle of secret ballot voting. Anyone wanting to buy votes could make payment conditional on receiving the voter’s copy of the ballot with the correct names marked.
That said, it could be accomplished in much the same way by having the voter shoot a photo of their completed ballot in the booth.
Just a thought.
Well, it was late and I was not clear. The voter would deposit the original in one box and the copy in the other one of the two boxes, their choice, and walk out empty handed - perhaps color tabbing the reverse of the ballots and the boxes would be an element, brown ballots in the brown box, green in the green box ? The principle of secret ballot voting would be upheld at every step; although the secret is somewhat public when one registers either republican or democrat.
At this point the ballots are in two boxes, one of which is held by each of the two major political parties.
It would be a matter of record how many voters cast votes - the turnout on election day, together with the mail-in's etc. (whose ballots would be handled in customary fashion). That number could be compared with and not exceed earlier voter registration records.
The actual count would be conducted separately by the parties in what ever manner deemed appropriate. For instance, it might be via scanned ballots into a computer, tabulated and transmitted to the local elections body.
If the parties did not agree on the count and could not reconcile their differences, the count would be resolved by reference to election official's record of serial ballots.
My thought is that in addition to an improved degree of integrity, some such procedure could substantially reduce the cost to local taxpayers.