[jahmed]

What exactly does "audit" mean to you?

Ballots typically do have unique IDs usually on some part that is removed by the voter. The problem is that isn't linked to anything because we don't want it linked to anything. This form of auditing isn't compatible with ballot secrecy. US elections do undergo rigorous process audits but the electorial process presents challenges to results audits.

[dukeofdoom]

With mailed out ballots, if each paper ballot had a unique id. You could audit:

1. That each paper ballot was only counted once by the tabulating machine.

2. No extra ballots were returned with an id that was not generated.

3. Easily spot copied ballots.

You could probably audit more things. If for example the id corresponded to a county, and so on.

[hoppyhoppy2]

Yes, it would be very convenient and maybe make it easier to catch voter fraud. But the voters couldn't have any trust that their vote was being counted separately from their actual identity.

If the government mails me a ballot with ID #1234 on it at my home address, then they have a way of knowing that Ballot #1234 belongs to me in particular when they're tabulating the votes, which means they can find out exactly how I voted. Now we don't have a secret ballot anymore, and the secret ballot is a fundamental part of our democratic voting system; a secret ballot prevents the government from rewarding people or doling out punishment based on how they voted. It's a safeguard against authoritarianism.

(I think some US states put identifying info on the outer envelope or sleeve that the ballot is returned in, but there's a strict system to keep the envelope-opening step separate from the ballot-tabulation step, so people's votes cannot be personally linked to them as long as the system is followed. And these days there are usually cameras watching to make sure it is followed, and the footage is public.)

If you do get rid of the secret ballot then there's not much of a reason to hide the ballot ID via yellow dots. Just put "Ballot #1234" all over it and/or print a unique barcode. But regardless of whether the ballot ID is displayed or hidden, if you happen to get a dictatorial maniac into power (whatever you personally envision that person to look like) then you would be one step closer to letting that leader use personally-identifiable voting records to punish the people who voted the way he (probably a he) didn't like and/or give the people who voted the way he did like rewards or unfair advantages.

[inglor_cz]

You could also determine that person X voted for an unpopular politician and ruin their life online. The reason why voting is anonymous is the realization that an election should not degenerate entirely into a popularity contest driven by peer pressure.

If you want to audit mailed out ballots, use two envelopes instead. The outer one will carry a unique id, the inner one will be completely anonymous and contain the actual ballot. All the auditing can be done on the outer, unopened envelopes. Then they are stripped off, all the inner envelopes are thrown on a heap and only then opened and counted.

Of course, even then, the paper ballots contain traces of the voter's DNA, so the truly paranoid will not be happy either.

[sethammons]

Couldn't you give a unique prime number to each person each election (untracked) and use that to calculate a final product of a particular election, and then people could independently validate their vote went where it should?

[pessimizer]

There are complicated schemes that can work, but if voters are able to prove the content of their vote to another person, they will be able to sell their vote or be extorted for it.

[api]

“E Pluribus Unum” meets the fundamental theorem of arithmetic. I like it.