<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>Still, we sometimes wonder exactly what the computers have been told to do.</div><div><br></div><div>I keep remembering a case where it took me some studying to sort out how a computer program seemed to perform magic:</div><div><br></div><div>Got a diskette and was told it could not be copied - because the owner of the program wanted to get paid for each new diskette the program was copied to.</div><div><br></div><div>Curious, though not intending theft, I copied all the records to another diskette and tried running it.</div><div><br></div><div>New diskette knew it was not an original, and refused to run. Looked at records on the diskette - there were no instructions in the copied records to do such a test - anyway, presumably the records had been copied accurately, so their content could not indicate this was a copy. </div><div><br></div><div>Look more carefully - there was an odd collection of odd words. Turns out that, when it was time to check, this collection became instructions to look at the noise next to a particular record on the diskette and see if the "password" was there, as it would be on the original. After making the test, put those instructions back into their hidden form.</div><div><br></div><div>Dave Ketchum</div><br><div><div>On Apr 28, 2012, at 9:28 PM, Paul Kislanko wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 34px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div lang="EN-US" link="blue" vlink="purple"><div class="WordSection1"><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">That wasn’t Dave who said that, it was me.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">My point was that what is it you’re going to count by hand? The tape printed out by the machine I voted on?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); ">If I didn’t hand-fill-out a ballot you’ve no way to know whether the ballots you’re counting by hand match what I told the machine was my vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; color: rgb(31, 73, 125); "><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; ">From:</span></b><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; "><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com">election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com</a> [<a href="mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">mailto:election-methods-bounces@lists.electorama.com</a>]<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><b>On Behalf Of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></b>Michael Ossipoff<br><b>Sent:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>Friday, April 27, 2012 9:55 PM<br><b>To:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="mailto:election-methods@electorama.com" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline; ">election-methods@electorama.com</a><br><b>Subject:</b><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>[EM] Dave Ketchum: Handcounts<o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Dave:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">You said:<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">And that gets to why I think "hand counting" is no longer useful as<br>"verification" - what is there to "hand count" when there are no paper<br>ballots except those printed by the machines that we're auditing?<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">[endquote]<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Handcounting was used even before there were voting machines!<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">I kid you not.<o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; "> <o:p></o:p></div></div><div><div style="margin-top: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-left: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Mike Ossipoff</div></div></div></div></span></blockquote></div></body></html>