[EM] Why We Shouldn't Count Votes with Machines

[Dave Ketchum]

Summary:
      Shamos describes MANY serious problems with elections that NEED 
fixing.  Offers some serious thought about fixes, including making 
DREs usable.
      Responses concentrate on fact that present DREs and paper 
ballots have problems, and do not consider fixing the DREs.
      I am inclined to agree with Shamos.
      There are TOO MANY horror stories!  Contracts SHOULD be written 
to pay reasonably for reasonable effort BUT provide for refunds that 
include paying users for their pain when what is delivered is too 
unreasonably sick.

I DID get some useful responses - THANKS:

On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 11:13:17 -0400 (EDT)
    Stephen Unger <unger at cs.columbia.edu> wrote:

> I am familiar with the Shamos article 
...
> Rather than respond to it myself, I will point to what I think is an
> excellent rebuttal by Ron Crane et al at:
> 
http://74.125.45.104/search?q=cache:W41nVB7aNl8J:www.verifiedvoting.org/downloa
ds/shamos-rebuttal.pdf+michael+shamos+voting+response&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&gl=us&
client=firefox-a
> 
> I do, incidentally, agree with the Shamos criticism of reliance on
> paper trails generated by DREs.

On Wed, 6 Aug 2008 13:49:22 -0400
   "Rick Carback" <rick.carback at gmail.com> wrote:
> Useful responses to Shamos? There was something published at VoComp:
> 
> http://vocomp.org/papers/shamos-rebuttal.pdf
> 
> It points out some problems with Shamos but doesn't really conclude that
> machines shouldn't be involved. I think there are disagreeable things in
> both papers. Google scholar might have others... If you find something i'd
> be interested in reading it.

I could not read this pdf file, but accept Rick's opinion.

On Wed, 06 Aug 2008 08:22:00 -0400 I wrote:
> Thank you!  Shamos, while long, is well worth studying!
> 
> Are there any useful responses?
...
> On Tue, 5 Aug 2008 19:50:17 -0400 Rick Carback wrote:
>  > The problem with hand counting is that it is not always clear that the
>  > record tabulated was the record generated by voters. You are trading
>  > something with a 40-50 year history of not being good enough with 
> something
>  > that has thousands of years of history showing it's not good enough. 
> It's a
>  > system we know doesn't work. An argument that says the older way was less
>  > bad is perfectly acceptable, but you have to concede that it leaves 
> much to
>  > be desired. All but the fraction of a percent of the observers and 
> counters
>  > involved in the process get no assurance that their votes were counted
>  > faithfully. You might want to read and respond to Shamos:
>  >
>  > http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/paper.htm
...
-- 
  davek at clarityconnect.com    people.clarityconnect.com/webpages3/davek
  Dave Ketchum   108 Halstead Ave, Owego, NY  13827-1708   607-687-5026
            Do to no one what you would not want done to you.
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