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

[Terry Bouricius]

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" <jlundell at pobox.com>
To: "Dave Ketchum" <davek at clarityconnect.com>
Cc: <kathy.dopp at gmail.com>; <election-methods at lists.electorama.com>; 
<jgilmour at globalnet.co.uk>
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.
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