Thursday, June 15, 2006
Paper and elections
I voted last week using a piece of paper, a pen and a real ballot box. My county has yet to be able to determine the outcome of multiple races over a week later. The margin in some is so slim (less than one third of one percent that the outcome may be unknowable.
How can the outcome of en election be unknowable? Well, if plus or minus 100 votes determines an election and you had to throw out more than 100 votes for whatever reason, you cannot know how those voter intentions would have affected the total. Therefore you cannot know with certainty the outcome of the election.
In our case, many ballots were thrown out because the voter either failed to properly fill in the blob with their pen, or filled in 2 blobs. A ballot thrown out because of two blobs is better than one marked for the wrong candidate. That's why I always used a number 2 pencil on multiple choice tests.
There are many ways in which error creeps into an election. A voter may have voted as an absentee and still showed up at the polling place. Even if they are caught, they are still given a provisional ballot. This covers the case where an absentee ballot was sent, but not turned in.
You get more error when the ink gets smudged. That can be the case for printed paper trails as well as the ink blob on paper ballots.
All in all, I would prefer if we cast ballots on CD. If I could make all the selections I wanted and then be able to read what was written on the CD, I would be happy. The reason is that I know anyone with a PC can read a CD. If I were an elections officer, I would post all the vote logs from the CD's to the internet. That way, anyone could do a vote count for any race they wished!
How can the outcome of en election be unknowable? Well, if plus or minus 100 votes determines an election and you had to throw out more than 100 votes for whatever reason, you cannot know how those voter intentions would have affected the total. Therefore you cannot know with certainty the outcome of the election.
In our case, many ballots were thrown out because the voter either failed to properly fill in the blob with their pen, or filled in 2 blobs. A ballot thrown out because of two blobs is better than one marked for the wrong candidate. That's why I always used a number 2 pencil on multiple choice tests.
There are many ways in which error creeps into an election. A voter may have voted as an absentee and still showed up at the polling place. Even if they are caught, they are still given a provisional ballot. This covers the case where an absentee ballot was sent, but not turned in.
You get more error when the ink gets smudged. That can be the case for printed paper trails as well as the ink blob on paper ballots.
All in all, I would prefer if we cast ballots on CD. If I could make all the selections I wanted and then be able to read what was written on the CD, I would be happy. The reason is that I know anyone with a PC can read a CD. If I were an elections officer, I would post all the vote logs from the CD's to the internet. That way, anyone could do a vote count for any race they wished!
