For a number of elections now, I have been a chair election judge in a large voting precinct in Minneapolis. As David Maeda explains, there is an iron set of procedures that we follow in the use of the optical scan voting machines. When a ballot is flawed for any reason, for example, the machine rejects the ballot and a printed explanation appears on the continuous tape that began (before the polls open) with a reliability check on the identity and status of the ballot counter and eventually ends with a printed report about the ballots cast. There are safeguards around every step of the process, including the exercise of replacing this primary tape should it run out during a busy day of voting.
Voted, ruined, duplicated and absentee ballots are all watched over with great care. On one unhappy occasion, my fellow election judge and I mistakenly transmitted final totals before all the absentee ballots had been run through the machine. Wrong. We were required to rerun all the voted ballots - a thousand or more - through a different voting machine at City Hall under the watchful eyes of one of the supervisors who ride herd on us well-meaning amateurs. This is the real value of the paper trail - clumsy mistakes like ours can be corrected in a secure environment. There are actual artifacts in addition to the digital reports and every effort is made in the human environment to make sure that one party's representative is always balanced by the presence of a competing party's representative. IMHO, it would be very dicey not to have the paper ballots as a backup to the optical scan reports. Fred Markus, West Phillips, now Ward 8-1, soon Ward 6-7 (maybe). --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.530 / Virus Database: 325 - Release Date: 10/22/2003 REMINDERS: 1. Think a member has violated the rules? Email the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
