[EM] Dave Ketchum: Handcounts

[Paul Kislanko]

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:davek at clarityconnect.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2012 5:55 PM
To: Paul Kislanko
Cc: 'Kristofer Munsterhjelm'; election-methods at 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.