---- Original message ----
>From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, at 8:13am, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>> I always wondered about this sudden desire to audit the
voting system.
>
> The issue with the close electoral vote for the US
President in Dade
>County in Florida during 2000 woke up the unthinking masses
to the fact that
>the the mechanics of the voting process are (like all human
endeavors)
>imperfect.
Statewide in FL, not just Dade. But essentially correct.
Also the advent of pure electronic voting systems where the
entire process is virtual has led to a number of problems
peculiar to the new media.
>
> A statistician will tell you that the vote in question was
so close as to
>be within the margin for error of *any* polling system. That
effectively
>makes it a tie. Of course, many people were not willing to
accept the
>facts, and played arbitrary legal games instead. Denial is a
common theme
>in human history.
>
Also our electoral system does not allow for ties. A one-vote
difference will determine a winner. If there is an identical
vote count some method is prescribed for selecting a winner,
usually by pure chance (e.g. coin toss).
This tends to feed the desire (requirement?) for a system that
counts votes accurately. Florida 2000 just provided proof
that the existing systems did not meet requirements.
Question is, how to meet those requirements?
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