In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
P.G.Hamer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Fred Galvin wrote:
..............
>US voters are indeed totally free not to vote for a presidential candidate.
>Although I suspect that the percentage of the US voting population who
>actually choose this option is quite low.
>However there is a known failure mode of automatic vote counting systems.
>If the voting machines sometimes imperfectly punch holes, the still-attached
>chad can obscure the hole on a subsequent machine counting. In which case
>the machine count may not accurately represent to intent of the voter.
>AFAIK there is general agreement that unbiased humans are better at
>identifying the difference between unpunched holes and imperfectly
>punched holes than current counting machines -- which after all were
>only designed to distinguish between unpunched and perfectly punched
>holes.
UNBIASED humans, yes. There is considerable evidence of bias.
Some of this bias is inadvertent, the type of observer bias
found in many experimental situations in other fields. This
is especially the case if it is not merely a piece of hanging
chad, but a dimple. It also occurs if there is a question
of multiple voting for an office.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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