In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Christian Bau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <90k3vl$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>(Herman Rubin) wrote:
>> >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.
>Both the United Kingdom and Germany use the old fashioned
>piece-of-paper-take-a-pencil-mark-your-candidate method, and the papers
>are always handcounted.
>I don't think there is ever any question about "voter intention" unless a
>voter deliberately chooses to make his ballot paper undecidable. Just
>because a system is oldfashioned doesn't mean it can't be better anyway.
Having used them, it is not that hard for an ignorant
person to do so. It is also not that hard for a corrupt
"counter" to invalidate such a ballot. However, I agree
that it is better than the current punched card ballots; I
seem to be in the far less than one percent of the voters
who uses the rather cumbersome and time-consuming method
to check my ballot.
The United States used hand counted paper ballots
universally until late in the 19th century, and there is no
place where it is not legal now. This was even the case
when there were dozens (literally) of positions voted upon
on the same ballot.
The major problem with such ballots is the possibility for
election fraud. Possibly this is rare in those countries,
but I would not be THAT sure. Mainly mechanical voting
machines were introduced primarily to reduce fraud. My
off-hand guess as to the number of illegally cast ballots
in this election is in the neighborhood of 1,000,000.
--
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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