Jonathan Lundell wrote: "BTW, it seems to me that there's a relatively straightforward solution in principle to the problem of computerized vote counting, based on the use of separate data-entry and counting processes. Let voters vote on paper, either by hand or with an electronic marking machine, enter the ballot data, perhaps by scanning, in such a way that the resulting ballot data can be verified by hand against the paper ballots, and permit counting by multiple independent counting programs."
That is exactly what Burlington (VT) and San Francisco (CA) do. Optical scan ballots are used, and the voter rankings are tallied by an official open-source program, but can also be tallied (and has been tallied) by other programs, because all of the ballot images are posted on the Internet. A key element, however is a hand-audit of a random sample of machines to assure (to a reasonable degree of confidence) that the computer record for the ballots matches the paper record. This redundant record is what makes these ranked-ballot elections significantly MORE secure than traditional hand-count elections (were some ballots stolen, added, re-marked to spoil, etc.?) and more secure than all electronic elections (was there a bribed programmer who inserted a virus?) Terry Bouricius ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Lundell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Dave Ketchum" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <election-methods@lists.electorama.com>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2008 11:08 PM Subject: Re: [EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines On Oct 5, 2008, at 5:38 PM, Dave Ketchum wrote: > While many methods, including Plurality, have no trouble > correctly picking the winner when there are only two candidates, > Plurality restricts voters unacceptably when there are more than two > candidates and many voters want to show more than one as better than > the remainder - which happens often. The issue is not the number of candidates, but rather the number of seats to be filled. Yes, it would be fine to have a better method than plurality to fill the very few necessarily single executive seats that we vote for, but that's a minor matter compared to the different between single-member districts and multi-member districts with PR. Suppose we could contravene the laws of mathematics and invent a single-seat method that was Condorcet-compliant and satisfied LNH/H in the bargain. The degree of representation achieved by such a method is dramatically worse than any decent PR system. BTW, it seems to me that there's a relatively straightforward solution in principle to the problem of computerized vote counting, based on the use of separate data-entry and counting processes. Let voters vote on paper, either by hand or with an electronic marking machine, enter the ballot data, perhaps by scanning, in such a way that the resulting ballot data can be verified by hand against the paper ballots, and permit counting by multiple independent counting programs. There are nontrivial details to be resolved, in particular ballot secrecy and the resolution of conflicting results, but it seems to me that it's a fairly contained set of problems. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info