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

[Brian Olson]

On Oct 6, 2008, at 11:30 AM, AllAbout Voting wrote:

>
> So I will ask a pair of constructive questions:
> 1. Can Condorcet voting be compatible with precinct level optical scan
> systems?  (which many election integrity advocates consider to be
> pretty good)

Yes.

> 2. Can Condorcet voting be compatible with end-to-end verifiable
> election integrity systems such as punchscan, 3-ballot, etc...?

Aside from the NxNx3 adaption of 3-ballot to condorcet information, I  
think it was suggested on this list a while ago that 3-ballot can be  
adapted to 0-100 range voting by scaling up its three ballots of 0-1  
voting and requiring sums of 100-200 for a valid vote instead of sums  
of 1 or 2. If that sort of system was used, rankings for condorcet  
counting could be extracted from the ratings votes, or a more advanced  
ratings-aware system could be used. Actually, that sounds pretty  
messy. NxNx3 is probably better.

Most of these methods require automatic ballot construction or  
specially clueful voters. I'd expect 99% of voters to never bother  
verifying that the election was actually done right if they had the  
certificates with which to check it. I think probably the best defense  
against electoral malfeasance is probably through the political and  
legal processes, and through the vigilance of the citizenry. We'll  
never make a system so mathematically perfect that we don't still need  
those other things.


Brian Olson
http://bolson.org/