On Oct 5, 2008, at 8:21 PM, Kathy Dopp wrote:
Jonathan
Not a bad solution at all Jonathan, although there is a lack of
transparency to any electronic count for the average citizen
That's true enough, though it's also true that the average citizen
isn't going to recount (or even observe a recount of) a plurality
election. I've participated in one myself, and it requires true
dedication.
- and
IRV/STV counting methods are virtually impossible to audit with
anything less than a 100% manual count and are virtually impossible to
accurately manually count in some election contests.
That's the point of my suggestion, though: it's easy to audit, either
100% or by sampling, the ballot file, and a concerned voter could
surely find an independent counter that she trusted, even if she
couldn't manage the count on her own.
The system could easily provide a set of test files with known results
such that a prospective counter could have reasonable assurance that
their counting software was counting correctly. Of course, in order to
challenge a count, the challenger's counting software would have to be
open-source, so it could be independently confirmed that the
discrepancy wasn't due to a bug.
But I like this solution for any alternative voting method that does
not have all the other severe flaws of the IRV/STV method.
Well, we disagree on the merits of STV, but my suggestion is really
method-independent.
Ballot level auditing does have certain challenges as you mention.
Kathy
On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 9:08 PM, Jonathan Lundell
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
BTW, it seems to me that there's a relatively straightforward
solution in
principle to the problem of computerized vote counting, based on
the use of
separate data-entry and counting processes. Let voters vote on
paper, either
by hand or with an electronic marking machine, enter the ballot data,
perhaps by scanning, in such a way that the resulting ballot data
can be
verified by hand against the paper ballots, and permit counting by
multiple
independent counting programs.
There are nontrivial details to be resolved, in particular ballot
secrecy
and the resolution of conflicting results, but it seems to me that
it's a
fairly contained set of problems.
--
Kathy Dopp
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