[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> My admittedly limited understanding of this process is that some of the
> older technology like punch cards are unreliable but not predictable. In
> other words, if you do a recount using the same set of ballots and the same
> machine to count them, you will likely get a different count but it is not
> necessarily more accurate. Unless the machine has more trouble reading some
> patterns than others, you would expect multiple runs to cluster around a
> mean that would approximate the true count.
Part of the difficulty stems from the use of the punch cards themselves. One
punches through the hole to make their ballot choice. Apparently, according to
Missouri election officials, the bit of paper making up the hole does not
always detach cleanly. Thus, when scanned it often flips up and "closes" the
hole and thus is not counted as a vote. If scanned again, it may or may not do
the same thing. Thus, when the election is close, it becomes necessary to do a
hand count so that these votes will not be missed.
Linda
--
Linda M. Woolf, Ph.D.
Associate Professor - Psychology
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's (and woman's) best friend. . . .
Inside a dog, it's too dark to read."
- Groucho Marx
