On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 4:30 PM, Raph Frank <raph...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Not 100% of programmers are trustworthy. However, there would be a flood of > people pointing out that there is a problem with the count ... (assuming they > release > the ballot data). Yes. Let's hope there would be sufficient capable knowledgable programmers to check. However, most jurisdictions do not release the ballot data in the US. In some states unbelievably they even keep the machine counts secret from the public and refuse to release them. And in Utah they even mak the precinct-level counts hard to obtain. Either obtain them from all counties individually if you can (no requirement for the counties to give them to you) or pay $25 and wait two weeks until after the election outcome is certified and only then will they mail you a CD with the precinct vote counts on them!! Many states in the U.S. are entirely susceptible to undetectable outcome-changing vote miscount. > > I don't support electronic voting machines. IMO, voting should be done with > paper ballots. Even when paper ballots are used, the counts are virtually always electronic done by trade secret software compiled into machine language in the US and in most states the publicly reported counts are never checked for accuracy after the election. > > We do PR-STV using paper ballots in Ireland. The counting is done in public. > Representatives from the media, political parties and other groups are all > present watching the counters do the manual counting. That is far superior a method to that used in most US states where ballots are secretly counted by private companies and the counts never checked at a level that would assure accurate election outcomes, or at all in most states. > > So, you mean take 5% of the ballots at random and just recount those ones. No, not ballots, because randomly selecting ballots and recounting them with a machine and manually does nothing to assure that the prior election counts were accurately reported. One must randomly select publicly reported vote counts that tally to the total results and manually count 100% of the ballots for each randomly selected vote count and compare it to the reported election results count. > It may be a reasonable method for determining if a recount > needs to happen, but I am not sure that it is a good way to do a > recount. It isn't a recount and Yes, if the sample size is adequate and the procedures are valid, then such a manual audit does determine whether to certify the election or to expand the manual audit, perhaps to a full recount. > > Also, I am not so sure that wouldn't work for PR-STV. A > representative sample should give the same result as counting all the ballots > subject to random variation. Well randomly selecting ballots is problematic. Obviously there are no publicly reported vote counts to select so with IRV it has to be ballots. To do that you'd need entirely different voting systems that would print humanly readable unique random numbers on the ballots after voters cast them to preserve anonymity and prevent vote buying, publish all the ballots and their identifying numbers and then make the random selections and then rifle through all the ballots to find the selected sample to compare with the published results which again only programmers could show add up to the reported outcomes. For a method that is fundamentally unfair, going through all the expense and hoops and buying the new election equipment necessary to audit like this is not worth it, even if someone wanted to go through all the expense, time and trouble. Hence it is more practical just to do 100% manual recounts as a method of checking STV vote counts. Why not use a fairer voting method that is easier to check the machine counts since most methods are precinct summable? > Well, you could check a random few ballot images and make sure the > official rankings associated with those ballots are correct. That doesn't tell you that the total is correct though, so it requires that anyone who wants to know if totals are correct has a programmer he or she trusts. 100% manual counts are the only reasonably understandable way for the public to know that the counts are correct with STV, unlike with other precinct-summable methods. > I don't think spreadsheets are the be all and end all of programming > simplicity. Yes. well it is interesting that STV can not be automated in a spreadsheet that you could give to election officials or others to use to count it, whereas other voting methods can be. Many more people can use spreadsheets than check a complex program that could count an STV election and make sure that the executable was really of the correct source code, etc. > > In plurality, how do you see voters actually making sure the count is > correct? It's not like they would actually handle the ballots themselves. No, but they can add up all the precinct totals and see that they add up correctly and then manually audit a random sample of precincts. It is very very trivially simple compared to trying to check the trade secret machine counts of an STV election. -- Kathy Dopp The material expressed herein is the informed product of the author's fact-finding and investigative efforts. Dopp is a Mathematician, Expert in election audit mathematics and procedures; in exit poll discrepancy analysis; and can be reached at P.O. Box 680192 Park City, UT 84068 phone 435-658-4657 http://utahcountvotes.org http://electionmathematics.org http://kathydopp.com/serendipity/ Post-Election Vote Count Audit A Short Legislative & Administrative Proposal http://electionmathematics.org//ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/Vote-Count-Audit-Bill-2009.pdf History of Confidence Election Auditing Development & Overview of Election Auditing Fundamentals http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/paper-audits/History-of-Election-Auditing-Development.pdf Voters Have Reason to Worry http://utahcountvotes.org/UT/UtahCountVotes-ThadHall-Response.pdf ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info