As I wrote earlier, the solution to "rigged" vote-counting computers is to make the input available to independent vote-counters like you and me, so we can run our independently-developed implementations of the same algorithm.
-----Original Message----- From: Dave Ketchum [mailto:da...@clarityconnect.com] Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 5:55 PM To: Paul Kislanko Cc: 'Kristofer Munsterhjelm'; election-meth...@electorama.com Subject: Re: [EM] Dave Ketchum: Handcounts On Apr 30, 2012, at 7:02 PM, Paul Kislanko wrote: > On 04/29/2012 04:48 AM, Dave Ketchum wrote: >> Computers do well at performing the tasks they are properly told to >> perform - better than humans given the same directions. Thus it would >> make sense to direct the computers and expect them to do what is >> needed accurately. >> >> Still, we sometimes wonder exactly what the computers have been told >> to > do. > > In my original suggestion THAT aspect of "verifiability" is covered by > the notion that if all ballots are made a public record, independent > programmers could perform whatever algorithm is the counting-method > against the input. > If 1000 members of EM (or one media outlet like CNN) got a different > result than the vote-counting authority published, we'd know there was > a counting error in the "official" computer code. And that would > happen within minutes, not weeks. > Automatically trusting CNN, or any other single source, with automatic credit for being more dependable than an official authority program is stretching it. As I wrote earlier, a program can be rigged to give either a correct or a biased result, as cued, with existence of the cue being hidden from observers. ---- Election-Methods mailing list - see http://electorama.com/em for list info