Sy,
"A ballot has my identifying information on it. They can look up if I voted. They can verify my ballot counted.'
Let's say a plane crashed with a shipment of ballots.
You're saying the onus is on you to initiate verification that your ballot was recorded so they will send a replacement?
Exactly how long will they wait before they will mail you a replacement to insure your ballot is indeed missing? I doubt it would be immediate. Plus, do you even have time to do this if the jet crashed close to election day.
How about the people who don't even know they need to check if their ballot was recorded? How many votes will be lost? So, how many people now didn't vote.
We're looking at a massive system of necessary checks and balances revolving around millions of uncounted ballots.
If the burden is on the voter to make sure they voted, I guarantee there will be a LOT of people whose vote will be lost and not counted. Most people will assume everything worked as planned.
My experience with accounting systems, I've learned the less human involvement handling source documents the better.
A better idea is mark a ballot, hand to someone with a scanner who reads it and there you have it. A lot of physical handling and moving through a system that is laborious and subject to all the possibilities of it being lost requiring all sorts of verification processes doesn't make sense considering the alternative. Less labor, less checks and balances and more accurate.
You'll never convince me the risk of mailed ballots isn't higher than in person scanned ballots. Early voting insures most people have time to get a vote counted.
The right to vote is one of the greatest privileges in a civil democracy. It's the government's duty to ensure that this system is not just sound and secure, but also trusted that all votes were counted
