On Fri, Nov 17, 2000 at 07:43:50PM -0500, John D. Giorgis wrote:
> What most surprises me though, is why this skepticism and fear of
> machines? Why this inherent assumption that only *humans* can
> accurately count a ballot?
Most of the people that I have seen/heard discussing it are not afraid
of the machines. They are simply making an informed judgment about the
accuracy of the machines. Surely you aren't claiming that a machine is
more accurate than a careful person following a well-defined set of
guidelines for counting?
If the guidelines aren't well defined or the people are careless, then
the machine IS more accurate. But I doubt that either of those are the
case in a manual recount.
> I actually happen to like machine counts because they are fast,
> efficient, and completely unbiased.
Untrue. Different KINDS of machines were used in different Florida
counties. The machines used in many of the highly populated counties,
which tend to be Democrat-leaning, are more prone to not counting some
votes that are otherwise valid ballots than are many of the machines in
the Republican-leaning couties.
In other words, more Gore votes were probably put in the "uncountable"
pile by machines than Bush votes.
--
"Erik Reuter" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.erikreuter.com/
