NYT: Hand-Marked Ballot Wins for Accuracy (officials go for touch screens)

[DeepModem Mom]

The Hand-Marked Ballot Wins for Accuracy
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: September 19, 2004


After the pandemonium over dimpled and pregnant chads in the 2000 election, nearly everyone agreed it was time to rethink old vote-counting ways. But the stampede to touch-screen voting was not inevitable.

Another, demonstrably more reliable technology was already on the rise: optical scan voting, introduced in some parts of the country in the late 1970's. By the 2000 election, optical scanning - which involves marking a paper ballot that is ultimately read and counted by a computer - had overtaken all other voting methods as the most common way to vote in the United States. This year, optical scan systems will be used in more than 45 percent of all counties, according to Election Data Services, a political consulting firm in Washington.

After the 2000 election, a study by the Voting Technology Project, a joint effort by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, took a hard look at the nation's voting systems. Using a measure of what they called "residual votes" - overcounting, undercounting or not counting votes for any reason - researchers found that two existing voting methods had produced relatively low error rates in the last four presidential elections: old-fashioned hand-counted paper ballots and optical scan systems....

***

But election officials who decided to change systems overwhelmingly went for the touch screens. Compared with about 13 percent of registered voters in 2000, this year roughly 30 percent of those registered will be asked to vote on electronic systems. Optical scan systems grew as well, although at a much slower pace: from about 30 percent of registered voters in 2000 to just under 35 percent this year, according to Election Data Services....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/19/politics/campaign/19ballot.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. What is wrong with a siimple pen and paper?

Oh silly me... many countries in the world still use paper and pen or a variation of the theme...

[Cronus Protagonist]

2. It works in Britain, with twice the population of Canda

And, I'm told, it's done with paper and pencil in Canada too, so there's no reason at all as to why it can't be done in any and every state in this country.

An addint machine with paper roll could be used to tabulate the results, and we'd have the most accurate election in the history of the US, probably.

http://brainbuttons.com/home.asp?stashid=13

[struggle4progress]

3. Optical scan voting is pen and paper:

you get a paper ballot, you mark your choices with a pen, a machine counts the marks --- and if there's any dispute the paper ballots, marked by the voter, are there, available for a human recount. It's convenient and "demonstrably more reliable" than touchscreen.

[harmonyguy]

9. The downside of optical scan is....

....some (many?) election officials who insist on handling a recount through something other than a scrutinized human examination of the original paper ballots.

The common non-human choices are:
-Rescan the ballots - BAD
-Reprint the tally tape from the scanner - BAD again
-Print the so-called 'ballot images'and scan or handcount them - really really BAD

..none of which produce what could reasonably be accepted as a valid recount. Still, some election officials insist on being lazy and NOT hand counting recounts.

Candidates who are involved in recounts MUST be prepared to insist on a scrutinized hand recount, where each ballot paper is shown to each scrutineer and they decide on how to count it, and then compare totals at the end of the process.

Machines 'may' be suitable for initial counts, but recounts MUST be done by hand.

HG

[bluedeminredstate]

4. Canada votes entirely

with a ballot and a pencil or pen that is then counted by a human not a machine. In the election around the time of the 2000 debacle it took them less than a day to have the results.
This makes sense to me; I wish we would do it this way.

[Lisa]

8. and most of our polls (around 200 people?) were certified in <2 hours

I got to help with the counting in the June federal election up here: voting ended at 7:30 and we were done before 9! We would have finished sooner but our returning officer insisted on a second count, "just to be sure".

The other thing is, the paper-and-pencil ballot works even during power failures. Prince Edward Island had a storm on the day of their provincial election, and voters marked their ballots by the light of lanterns and flashlights. Even an optical scanner would have been put out of action by that.

However, in situations where the ballot is longer (multiple questions) this might not work as well. Canada isn't big on referenda, so we haven't had as much practice there.

[harmonyguy]

10. We were done by 8:15pm....

Another BIG advantage of paper and pencil is that it really doesn't matter what sort of 'writing implement' the voter chooses to use. Blue pen, #5 pencil, felt pen, wax crayon, or even a hunk of charcoal. Voter intent can easily be determined, even if they use the 'wrong' implement, or don't completely 'fill the bubble'.

Multiple questions are also easily handled. One question per different-coloured ballot paper. I remember one election with eight different papers. It was still easy, and there were no situations where someone accidently chose to increase garbage-fees, instead of the candidate from their favored party.

KISS - Keep it simple, statesmen.
KISS, or kiss it goodbye!

HG

[Lisa]

12. true ...

I haven't voted in a jurisdiction that had that many different questions not related to picking specific candidates yet, so that's good to know. A friend in California said that sometimes they get a whole wad of stuff to vote on (all those propositions). Way more than Canadians tend to get, even in municipal elections.

They told us during the briefing session that they try to encourage the voters to use pencils -- not just because it might indicate pre-marked ballots somehow being smuggled in, but the main reason stated by Elections Canada is that ink can deteriorate under storage conditions, and rub off on other ballots. The smudges could theoretically make it harder to tell the voter's intent (e.g. if they end up on multiple boxes). They used to disqualify ballots not marked in pencil, which incidentally is how Ed Broadbent won one of his first elections ... the businessmen tended to bring their own pens and use them to mark the ballot, and many of them voted for Ed's opponent.

[bluedeminredstate]

11. My mom lives

on PEI. I love that place - spent two weeks there this summer. I apologized to everyone I spoke to for our assholery in foreign relations.
:)

[Toots]

14. That is exactly what they are saying is the best method

In one instance the paper marked ballot is read by people in the other it is read by computer (optical scan) but ballots are marked by pencil and are the paper trail . Bush* said in 2000 that people could not be trusted to count the ballots because they were subjective where machines were objective so only machines should ever be used to count ballots. That was his rational for stopping the recounts. Kind of weird since he ran on a meme of "I Trust the People"

[stickdog]

5. But touch screem works for no accountability.

Hence its soaring popularity under the "no account" Bush regime.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Give teh boy a cigar

this is the right answer

DING, DING, DING

But start floating the paper and pencil works, and works well

[GregD]

7. Polls are rigged, just like the machines

Just heard an interview on Laura Flanders where the guy firmly expressed the opinion that the polls are rigged to keep the race close, so when * steals 2004 the sheeple will be less inclined to pay attention to the "conspiracy theorists".

I've been convinced of this for a couple years now. I don't think the country is as evenly divided as the polls say we are.

All you folks in the GOTV campaigns, please keep going. Only through over-freaking-whelming turnout, where we simply activate more "new voters", do we have a prayer of persevering and winning.

We do NOT want to wake up Nov 3 and learn that we lost. Don't let it happen!

[DeepModem Mom]

13. posted last night -- kicking discussion for a.m. -- (nt)