----- Original Message -----
From: "John D. Giorgis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 6:43 PM
Subject: Re: Machines and people
>
> 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? I actually happen to like machine counts because they are fast,
> efficient, and completely unbiased. A uniform standard is applied to
every
> single ballot, *without* question. Why is this such a bad way of
> ascertaining the results?
Its not the vote counting machine that is at fault. It is the original
voting machine that punched the chads if I am understanding the news
correctly. The chads were so poorly punched in a large number of cases that
the counting machines could not tabulate the votes correctly, or even give
the same numbers twice. Hence the endless discussion of chads.
Bush's campaign know this and are attempting to spin attention away from the
voting machines (that are faulty in some cases) to the counting machines
(which operate perfectly under controlled conditions).
The reason we use machines to count votes is because machines are fast and
cheap, not because they count perfectly under clinical conditions.
xponent
rob
