Are paper ballots an UNREALISTIC OPTION???? A non-starter??

[Land Shark]

I've heard some good activists argue generally that pushing for paper ballots, hand counted, is "flat earth" stuff and the easiest way to get ignored. Are paper ballots "unrealistic"?

This reminds me of the person who sticks their hand in your pocket and starts fishing around, then gives you your 'realistic options' all of which include the element of their hand remaining in your pocket, at least partially.

Voting companies insert technology in between the voter and their ballot, and then count votes in an invisible (for sure) and secret (if a trade secret) way. They've got their paws in the pockets of democracy.

It would be not only inappropriate, but a crime for a human being to collect blank ballots and purport to vote them (without showing the voter) supposedly "in accordance with the intent of the voter". It would be yet another crime for the same human to count those votes invisibly and/or secretly, and announce the results. It would be a third and even more outrageous travesty for the human to say in effect "you can have as many recounts as you want, but I'll just give you the same total as before". Now for real chutzpah, this human wants to charge $5 million per county for this "service". It's more like the divine right of kings, and we should be taking volunteers or bids for purchasers of this valuable right, not paying others to do it.

Now if a human can not insert themselves in between the voter and their ballot, or count votes invisibly or secretly (as above), then why should it be possible for several humans to hide behind a computer and provide the same "service"???

Now, because those private actors who have inserted themselves into the most central task of our GOVERNMENT appear to have every intention of staying there, and have some considerable political support it is said, therefore it is "unrealistic" and "flat earth" to take the position that the COMPUTERS NEED TO LEAVE THE ELECTION, which is the same as saying the humans that are trying to handle the voting of other humans are committing crimes and need
to stop. Forthwith.

I fully agree with Kathy Dopp that (at least at first) paper ballots hand counted will be dismissed as "unrealistic" or a non-starter. But as you know who said, first ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

VERY IMPORTANT, IMHO: It's a huge tactical mistake to move forward with a specific reform proposal before the critique of the existing one is complete. It's a mistake because by making claims/proposals, the first step of any intelligent person is to start evaluating/criticizing the claim/proposal being made. And since no system is perfect, there are always criticisms and it (wrongly) makes it seem like the proposed reform is as flawed as the current system.

The answers always flow from VALUES, which are: (1) the average voter should be able to verify their own vote as well as the fact that democracy is, on the macro level, working properly WITHOUT HAVING TO HIRE COMPUTER EXPERTS, LAWYERS OR STATISTICAL EXPERTS just to be in the ballgame, (2) the people insist on retaining control over the government, and therefore NEVER concede the ability of the government to place anything between the voter and her ballot, or to count votes secretly or invisibly.

And, since no system is perfect, the standard of Progress is not who has the most techno-toys, but given that there is (in any system) always the problem of human ill motive, WHAT IS THE SIZE OF THE REWARD PER CRIME COMMITTED? With paper ballots mailed in, those ballots are "unsupervised" in a sense but buying such a ballot or stealing it nets only ONE vote. Whereas, with a computerized system, a single crime nets HUNDREDS, THOUSANDS or MILLIONS of votes, depending on the specifics.

I haven't fully evaluated openvoting.org I just want to strongly disagree with the idea that paper ballots are "unrealistic". Oregon is very close to that, and has no major problems or opposition. It only seems unrealistic because (1) we've fraudulently been presented with a series of bad false choices by corporations that have hijacked democracy and become our government and (2) we've insufficiently stressed the basic values identified above, which are strongly supported by the public, and which if followed to their logical conclusion mean that computers must not be in casting or counting functions (they can display data results, or facilitate monitoring of hand counting via webcams).

Taking up these values seriously (that no person or business can privatize our voting process) is a very strong place to argue from, where we need not, and should not, compromise. If we are singing this song, it is only a matter of time before we stare in wonder at the fact that we, ALL OF US, recently thought paper ballots were "unrealistic".

On the contrary, it is a profound miscalculation and in fact naive to think that the American public, if they knew, would accept anything other than paper ballots. Therefore, we need to hammer on the basic values that get us there, and stop throwing out acronyms that unwittingly beat around the Bush of the values we are applying here.

[ananda]

1. course not

Of course not. Paper ballots are used in many countries without problems.

But.. it's harder to corrupt the vote with paper ballots.

Sue

[xray s]

2. I think Optiscan, with a mandatory, 10% ramdom recount, would work

I would go to 100% paper ballots, tabulated by an Optiscan type system, with a mandatory by hand recount of 10% of the precincts randomly chosen just to make sure nothing funny is going on.

[pat_k]

8. Independent confirmation

If Optiscan stay in the mix, independent confirmation is needed. Not only requiring the state officials to carry out a "check". I'd like to see secure and observed processes by which the totals reported can be checked by the political parties (e.g., the Democrats, Republicans, Greens, have the right to select counties or precincts to verify by running the ballots through their own machines).

[Land Shark]

3. It's an ENVIABLE position to be in:

The power to set the big agenda, and then to graciously allow us plebes to argue over slight modifications, slight reforms, and impact mitigation.

Note that "no" is not an option.

1. Introduce the Lie. 2. allow the "freedom" of relatively minor amendments that don't change the basic nature of the Lie. 3. Pronounce "unrealistic" anyone who challenges the Lie, or call them a "radical".

Sweet, eh?

Thanks to Evan for some of this wording.

[tjwmason]

4. We have paper ballots hand counted in Britain

But our elections are much simpler. At a general election one will simply have to vote for one candidate in one race (the local M.P.). When multiple elections are held on the same day (for example 1997 general election and local elections) it is normal that two separate ballot papers be given, in different colours. American elections are more complex than this, but the principle still stands.

If there is a desire for transparency, then paper marked with pencil is hard to beat. It will just take a little longer to get the votes counted, and will be more expensive to count them - but what price fair voting?

[Amaryllis]

19. Hand counting is much less expensive than purchasing e-voting systems.

[Wilms]

25. Amaryllis, can you hang some links about that?

I think each side of the debate is claiming to be the most economical. I'm not at all sure of the accuracy of either. I'm wondering if it might be more accurately accessed on a per precinct or county basis. It wouldn't surprise me if DRE's are cheaper to use in urban areas, while paper is cheaper to use in rural parts.

But the point could be, that if "Paper Ballots Hand Counted" is more expensive, "so what?". It's the price of "Freedom".

I guess my other complaint (yeah, frequent rant) is, each side of the debate, at times, talk past one another, cherry-picking some arguments while making mountains out of mole-hills with others.

Am I naive to think candor the course?

[Amaryllis]

36. I don't have links; I have read this but you know how it is when you are

reading so much on election stuff; hard to remember where sometimes!
This is a thread I started on hand counting awhile back. I need to go back and read it; there was a lot of good stuff in here, I remember.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=303880

[Wilms]

37. I know what you mean.

:)

I've seen two referrence to paper being cheaper. Perhaps one of those was MythBreakers. On the other side of debate, I saw AAPD claiming DRE's to be cheaper.

I'd wager they're both wrong, or right, depending upon a given individual county/precinct.

[slackmaster]

5. They work pretty well in Canada

:shrug:

[ahlnord]

6. paper ballots

Why would paper ballots, handcounted, be out of the question? I have been an election judge in a major election (several years ago) in which paper ballots were handcounted, and it went quite well. You have to have precinct election workers from both (or all) the major parties, counting in a specified, cross-checking way. Any discrepencies in the total cause the ballots to be recounted until everyone comes up with the same bottom line. All judges sign off on the sealed results before they are sent up to the county. The precinct results are posted publicly at the polling place and are published in the newspaper. That way, even when the results at the county and state level are tabulated by computer, any citizen or watchdog group can do their own computing to be sure the county and state results have not been tampered with. I can only see this method being a problem if there aren't enough precinct election workers, equally representing both parties, and well-trained. The precincts are never so large that this counting would be too onerous to be done by hand. This is a wonderful civic duty, much less taxing than jury duty!

My understanding is that Germany uses this method because after the war the U.S. dictated that only paper ballots, handcounted would be acceptable there BECAUSE IT IS THE LEAST CORRUPTIBLE OF ALL THE METHODS!! Can anyone verify if that is true? Is it in the German constitution, or where would such a stipulation be? Even if it isn't a requirement we imposed on Germany, I believe that handcounting is, in fact, the least corruptible of all the methods.

[Land Shark]

7. Paper: the corruption pay off is small n/t

[Bill Bored]

12. Welcome to DU ahlnord!

:toast:

Are you sure Land Shark didn't put you up to this?

Maybe you can be HIS judge when he goes to court in WA to get rid of those DREs! ;)

Thanks for posting and stick around!

[Amaryllis]

20. Were you counting complex ballots with many different races on the same

ballot? This is the argument I always hear against hand counting. We have about fifty items per ballot in OR sometimes.

[GetTheRightVote]

9. Only reason not to like them is because you like to cheat to much

They are the only way to get fair elections in any country and that is why so many do not like them.

:kick:

[kster]

10. Yes because

then they would have to hire people with pick up trucks to go in and manually steal the ballots from the voting places. Click of the mouse is much easier.

[BeFree]

11. In North Carolina

A computer screw-up delayed for months the seating of several elected state officials.

The use of the computer obstructed the vote count and caused the delay. Well, sir, if the ballots had been hand-counted, the delay would not have happened.

Computers, while they may appear to be faster, are known to cause huge delays.

And that's the truth.....

[kster]

14. That is what I just said

I never was very good at one liners. "Paper ballots hand counted" all the way. Not paper ballots locked in a machine,then counted by a machine, then that total sent to another machine.

I'm 100% with landshark on this,we don't want to say Paper Ballots Hand Counted, because we are afraid they won't lets us. We the people better stop being afraid.We all know paper ballots hand counted is the answer,but we are not sticking to it.


Maybe we can add something so we stay on message,"PAPER BALLOTS HAND COUNTED FOR KIDS SAKE",then maybe we will all fight for what is right,I know we all want whats best for our kids. Sorry for the rant.

[BeFree]

16. Ok

It pains me to say this, it really does, but we ain't gonna get hand counted ballots.

Why? Because there's only about ten people asking for hand counts.

So, what's the alternative? What is as close as we will come to what we want? Hell if I know, so what the hell, might as well keep clamoring for hand counted, eh?

[Land Shark]

22. It pains me to tell you, but a seed is really, really small

But the only relevant question is whether it has the life-force we want in order to be worth tending and propagating.

This principle, in the end, gets you paper ballots, hand counted:

The average citizen must be able to understand and verify that their democracy is working without needing to hire an expert to help undestand it, no person can vote a ballot for any other person unless they are disabled and even then only in the presence of witnesses, and the people must retain control of the government and the channels that transfer political power from the people to the government via elections.

If you believe in anything similar to the above, it is a seed that when it is tended and propagated can NOT grow into electronic voting machines.

Paper ballots, hand counted it is.

You can't fault something for seemingly little support that hasn't been fully pushed for, when many other countries use it.

BeFree, I hope you are not a woman because a lot of suffragettes died not having achieved their dream but we're all darn lucky they were not imprisoned by notions of "realism" and short term political expedience.

I truly doubt that the above "prisoner of the short term" is what BeFree is about in general, but when we allow doubt and despair to impair our values, well.... that happens to us all from time to time.

[BeFree]

27. Life's a beach

But the only relevant question is whether it has the life-force we want in order to be worth tending and propagating.

Oh, it's a seed worth planting

This principle, in the end, gets you paper ballots, hand counted:

But when is the harvest? 2008? We may be starved by then.

The average citizen must be able to understand and verify that their democracy is working without needing to hire an expert to help undestand it, no person can vote a ballot for any other person unless they are disabled and even then only in the presence of witnesses, and the people must retain control of the government and the channels that transfer political power from the people to the government via elections.

What are you, some kind of commie? LOL. I can LOL, but the reality is people 'Like' e-voting, and they damn sure don't wanna get involved in politics... the TV clicker is their favorite tool of control.

If you believe in anything similar to the above, it is a seed that when it is tended and propagated can NOT grow into electronic voting machines.

I Believe. I really do. The vote is the blood of democracy

Paper ballots, hand counted it is.

You can't fault something for seemingly little support that hasn't been fully pushed for, when many other countries use it.

BeFree, I hope you are not a woman because a lot of suffragettes died not having achieved their dream but we're all darn lucky they were not imprisoned by notions of "realism" and short term political expedience.

I truly doubt that the above "prisoner of the short term" is what BeFree is about in general, but when we allow doubt and despair to impair our values, well.... that happens to us all from time to time.

Thanks, Landshark, your words ring with an honest attempt at understanding. I have been about, in general, "Tilting at Windmills". The voting fiasco is, at this stage a huge windmill. Having surveyed a hundred people who, for the most part "Like" e-voting and frown at the sound of hand-counting, I've retreated to a stance of making the best of what we now have.

A paper ballot, voter verified, counted by a machine, but auditable by eye, is the best we will get for 2006. IMO, anyway.

[kster]

28. Hammer on the basic value!

"On the contrary, it is a profound miscalculation and in fact naive to think that the American public, if they knew, would accept anything other than paper ballots. Therefore, we need to hammer on the basic values that get us there, and stop throwing out acronyms that unwittingly beat around the Bush of the values we are applying here".

[Amaryllis]

21. Yep. Easier to do and harder to get caught.

[SpaceBuddy008]

13. To ERR is Human.....

.....it takes a computer to REALLY FOUL THINGS up !

What if ballot's were the size of dollar bills????

[LittleClarkie]

15. One of my friends is a conservative, another a near-freeper

and both dislike electronic ballots as being too easy to hack. We'd like to see a system like ours, where you mark with a felt tip between arrows, then feed it through a machine that counts it. It's a stand alone machine and only one or two are needed as opposed to a multitude of machines.

One of them actually misses the lever, because you really felt like you were doing something. But I think we all agreed we like paper ballots.

But I know some don't eve like that optical machine that reads the ballot and gives you a nice satisfying "be-beep!" letting you know that you hadn't screwed up your ballot. But I would think it was less hackable as a stand alone machine. And you'd still have the paper ballots to count if need be.

So, no, I don't think it's a non-starter.

[kster]

17. Kick........................n/t

[Amaryllis]

18. You tell 'em, Land Shark,! I'm behind you all the way. E-voting is

already illegal!!! Why would we try to pass reforms to secure an illegal system that cannot be secured?

[Liberty Belle]

23. I agree. Paper ballots--and NO machines or computers.

[Senator]

24. Restarter Reply for the Pooh Pooh Parrots

I agree that the values argument Land Shark is proposing could well win the day, certainly it would in a court of law. The trouble with cracking the wider, public opinion nut is that you need to get the argument started in order to win it.

The reality of the "non-starter position" is that it isn't even an argument, let alone a debate position. It's simply something that people, mainly gov't officials, have been trained (like parrots) to think/say over time. Usually with some vague wise-crack about "oh, we had so much fraud with them in the past" as a buttress to this "conventional wisdom."

The effect is not merely to dismiss the suggestion at the given time/place, but to dismiss the notion itself in the speaker's mind.

The challenge for us is to simply not let them get away with it. We need to respond immediately every time we hear that canard with the confrontational truth. We need to say (in a loud steady voice):

"But you've just been trained to say that. You can't give me concrete reasons and examples to support why you dismiss paper ballots out of hand."

At this point, anything they might respond can easily be countered with simple "modern" solutions like bar codes, video chain-of-custody, redundant counting, etc... Then the values argument can be brought to bear as "the bottom line."

Better yet would be for them not to respond. To just leave the statement ringing on its own.

We might be pleasantly surprised as just how quickly this strawman topples with a bit of blowback in its general direction.

---

[Land Shark]

26. The definition of election-progress is....

(since a certain amount of human corruption is a constant in any system) making the reward or payoff for an election-crime as small as possible.

Examples:
Vote by mail/paper ballots: Has risks of vote selling and stealing due to ballots being distributed via mail, but the typical PAY OFF IS ONE VOTE PER CRIME OR IRREGULARITY.

Computerized elections: The typical payoff per crime or irregularity is hundreds of votes, thousands of votes, or the whole election sotlen by a single person.

And please note: Washington state has 65% vote by mail/absentee and they've scoured the state for the election contest in the governor's race that is still going on, and haven't found this problem. Only alleged felons and aliens voting a few double voters and a few voters dead before they mailed their ballots, along with weak allegations that the largest county "found" some ballots on purpose late in the process (though many counties did). The total numbers of these (even if all proven) at one or two thousand are not enough to even potentially change any statewide political race other than this governor's race: the closest in the history of our nation by 129 votes. These problems will never be major issues again, and it shows that even with an intensive investigation of the paper ballots (Republicans have not investigated e-voting in any significant way) it confirms that the payoffs for irregularities in paper voting are small and almost never relevant to change the results significantly.

[Senator]

40. I just disagree with even giving that first inch...

...that "corruption is a constant."

I think we need to challenge that proposition as well. We should propose starting with the "free" deterrant against corruption of making election manipulation a capital offense (yes, with the possibility of execution).

Again, I think failing to challenge this allows the other side to remain self-righteous about why they've spent billions on for-profit technologies to "secure election integrity."

We need to cut them off at the knees. Make it clear that our position is that every penny spent thusfar has been malfeasant waste.

----

[Land Shark]

42. I agree corruption need not be necessary but am willing to

concede for *now* and for tactical reasons (not defending an unnecessarily hard argument) that the corruption is constant but relatively small, unless the system allows its magnification.

We have to consider we are talking about (nationally) control of the world's richest country and most powerful military and we can't concede that of the 50 million people with motive NONE would try and cheat? It's a tough sell. Better I think to concede some background corruption and look at the relative size of payoffs.

After all, if there need not be corruption, then as long as votes seem to be initially recorded correctly by DREs, then we need have no worries about incredible security lapses or holes.

[Senator]

49. I understand that the concession you're making is tactical...

...I just think it's a flawed tactic that may well prove counter-productive.

**And let me say that it's not my intent to single out you (or this nit) for undue attention. I see that this piece is not the most crucial part of your overall thrust. I just think it's an exemplar of the types of argument we often advance on the left that meets with rather limited success.**

Odd as this might sound, the problem with this part of the argument is that it's perfectly rational, reasoned, and logically persuasive. And as I said above, in presenting this to a judge or jury in a court of law, I'd have no issue to take.

The trouble is that so many of our fellow (former) Americans have been well-trained to distrust and reject logic, reason, and rationality. They've also been trained to reject right-and-weak for strong-and-wrong. And to do these things with an attention span of a toddler (there is only *now*). Regret it we might, but it's simply "where we are."

For them, erradicating electoral corruption with the death penalty is not a "tough sell" at all. It's (almost literally) a no-brainer. The kind of reactive "solution" they've been trained to embrace. Your relative size/payoff argument requires them to think too much (which is to say, at all).

By "dismissing" the corruption part of the issue in this way, we can allow for a more focussed consideration of the more important values-based propositions. At the same time, we can inject a quite warranted degree of graveness into the dabate. (Not to mention a probable Euphemedia "hook.")

But this is not to say I'm proposing this merely as a tactic or without complete seriousness. The truth of the matter is that there is no grand architect or designated chain of command in the stolen electon racket. It's rather a disparate web of "right thinking" people who take it upon themselves to "play hardball" in their local feifdom.

These people honestly believe that an election is a contest to be gamed, as opposed to a survey to be respected. I really think that the possibility of draconian retributive justice would virtually eliminate much of our problem.

--

[KaliTracy]

29. I'm with you Land Shark, though the reasons we've been told paper

ballots won't work is because of time, money and corruption possibilities (One gentleman at the December Rally in Columbus was very outspoken about how they wouldn't work when Susan Truit (sp?) was talking.)

I came up with an idea -- though it's probably too difficult to implement. I've never been a poll worker, I've just thought about this a few times.

If there are multiple races, a booklet with tear out pages for ballots. Each page contains a Race. On the top of each page is a unique symbol (square, circle, triangle, etc.) This makes it easy for the first sorting.

On each page is also an option like a "no vote for this race/issue" box to know that the intention of an Undervote is that the person really didn't want to vote for president after standing in line for 2 hours in the rain.

Person votes in their own little cardboard cubby. Lots and lots of cubbies could be used.

Booklet is put into ballot box.

*** and in addition...

I'd like to see a way that voter and intention to vote could be determined ("prove to me that my vote counts") -- so my "difficult" part (that would never work) would be as follows:

1. When you sign your poll book, you sign on a database number next to your name. There is an identical number which the poll worker puts onto the outside of your ballot book and the pollworker signs the book, overlapping so the signature touches the book and the number.

2. When you are done voting there are Two ballot boxes. One for your cover, which has your database number and pollworker signature. One for your ballots, which you rip out prior to going to the ballot boxes, and have placed in a sleeve like punch card votes are placed.

Why? Well, since corruption seems to be a major concern for people, this just ensures that there is a person for every vote, that there aren't "extra" (padded) votes, and that a poll worker was involved in assigning a person a ballot book. It can't guarantee that someone doesn't switch out votes -- but they would have to switch out a whole set, as there should be an accurate count of poll book signatures to ballots.

The multiple races are first separated by symbol -- which then allows each race to be counted individually and not have to deal with a whole page of choices. They can even count the Presidential Election the same night if they wanted, and do the rest the next day (or do them all that night) (providing there isn't an Level 10 alert at the Counting Place/election headquarters) There should be the same number of ballots per race, since there is a "no vote" option (people would NOT leave ballots in the booklet, poll worker overseeing the ballot box would ensure this).

The number of people in a precinct should be a workable number for ease in counting -- but even if they kept it as it is today, with multiple cubbies, the waitto vote should be much shorter. Could even have a certain number of ballots created in other languages to cut down on interpreter costs at each poll.

edit: clarity

[dzika]

30. My Republican friends in NC

don't trust electronic voting without paper ballots or paper receipts. I haven't found any exceptions among the voters I have talked to here.

I expect a VVPB bill to be passed this year with little opposition.

Election officials do oppose efforts curtail electronic counting. I'm not sure that the support for random recounts is popular enough to pass this year.

Paper ballots are nearly worthless if none of them are ever counted by hand. Even in a contested election, if paper recounts aren't truly random (as in Ohio) and election officials are partisans then paper ballots can still be meaningless.

Paper ballots alone aren't a "non-starter". Legislation without loopholes that guarantees fair elections is a "non-starter" in the current corporate-political climate.


Which is more important to you? Rigged elections or rigged baseball?

Which is more important to Congress and the media?

[WHAT]

31. flat earth stuff is a pecking order/linear frame imposed...

imposed on a population with an aerial/three dimensional referencing system. The idea that elections are rigged are old-fashioned in that it harkens back to a system where values were linear/goal orientated and heaven or money or whatever was pursued by confident people with blinders on so as to diminish distractions and thus win the race.

Your post trigged some of these thoughts that have been roiling around in my mind. This is part of my value system and this is how I think when I think about rigged elections. I think that because we do live in a three dimensional world globally it is becoming more difficult to substain fascism or totalitarianism if for no other reason than maintaing homeostasis because without feed-back things break-down. I think this is simply why the world is becoming more liberal...people take a bird's eye view even when they're parochial.

Also, because of this, I think every perspective should be taken into consideration to make for a more viable system. Viewed as a circle, for every point on a circle there is a tangent and there are an infinite number of points...now, expand that to a sphere...that is where we are...in this point of time.

There is no going back and this is why I think the one world domination (could be corporations, religious affiliations etc.) is doomed to fail as an inferior/flat earth system when the connections among people multiply and become more complex.

I like the idea of computers to weigh the different gradients that colour issues...say, matching-up local concerns with pockets of thought that have relevance to a specific population. This would not work without honest voting because false facts are useless to the well-being of a system...garbage in garbage out.

I agree with pretty much everything you say. The true value of honest elections can not be overstated and is worth the price of hand-counting although I suspect hand-couting may be easier and less expensive than touted by the yakkers.

Out with the old, in with the new...every perspective being taken into consideration, every vote counted...hand counted!

[bardgal]

32. PAPER BALLOTS ARE THE ONLY WAY! BAN E-VOTING PERIOD!

Anything less is UNACCEPTABLE!

[Wilms]

33. Thanks for illuminating. n/t

-on edit

:bounce::bounce:

That's better. Now it really makes the point. :eyes:

[understandinglife]

34. "Not one line of software between a voter and a valid election."

Paper, all the way.

Peace.

[rigel99]

35. brava... agreed....

www.countpaperballots.com

paper rules!

[feelthebreeze]

38. Paper good...machine bad

But there is concern about the time it takes to actuallly count PB's.
Surely a Optical Scan that is used for counting in-precinct only could deter the possibility of DRE fraud or Modem hacking. Speed up the totals, insure less ability for fraud to take place, and help to give us a bargaining chip as these debates continue. We could back up with random paper vote tallies compared to precinct totals obtained through the opscans as a mandatory step throughout the election. If speed and money is the sticking point in this debate, then this could be the compromise.

[rigel99]

39. OK, I'll think more about this.. but.... i'm still skeptical....

but question... haven't Optiscans (and scanning in general) ever been able to get past the 2-3% error rates?

is any technology with such an error rate so acceptable.

Why not have a separate ballot & ballot box for president, since that's the most important race, count that paper first and get that done by next day and take our time counting the paper.

95% of the world's democracies count paper.. and we continue to do it and have done it in time for many years... why is counting paper all of a sudden broken? or not FAST ENOUGH... do americans want fast food elections they way they have fast food McDonald's sacrificing quality for speed?

I just heard our SOS Cathy Cox rip Optiscans to shreds a few weeks ago, saying 5% more african american disenfranchisement because of error rates/etc.....I did not remember her arguments and would be loath to sitting on the same side of the fence as someone who brought the black plague of death to Georgia, but still, it goes back to audits and gives the GOP control or potential for wiggle room in the way the audits happen.

it's like saying we'll only put a little gas in your gas chamber..... either way it's still genocide.... we're killing off our democracy.... little by little, it's dying a very slow and painful death....

I spent about 100K of my own money building a company that scanned in travel receipts.. I found that a 97 or even 98% accuracy rate (and 2% error) meant there was no business case for running a company, meaning it was too high an error rate to make a profit off this kind of error, because in the end, you end up counting and human entering the data anyway, so the scanning buys you nothing. scanning is acceptable when you can afford human backup (like in a grocery store in the selfhelp aisle, you are there to manage the entire transaction).... no other example shows scanning as a completely automated process, trusted to scan a ballot that is ultimately marked by a human.... too many ways humans sketch outside the lines...... that sort of thing.. I could go on , but hopefully you see the big picture....

[Amaryllis]

41. Agree. Agree. Agree. Yes yes yes.

[Land Shark]

43. This is how you defraud a person:

You appeal to some exaggerated value, so they lose focus on the rest of the picture.

Examples: Appeal to greed of easy money, victim ignores risk of transaction.
Appeal to convenience in elections, officials ignore fact that democracy must have confidence in result and security and keep payoffs for corruption low rather than high.

appealing to "time to hand count paper ballots" is an exaggerated convenience factor. There's no reason we can't get ballots in by Tuesday (perhaps with rain checks for wednesday if lines in place) and then announce results at noon on Thursday, at the appointed time, in a fun and somewhat dramatic announcement (the public is observing the count so any desire for interim results and transparency is fully satisfied)

[marions ghost]

50. I agree...

"In-precinct" counting WITH the addition of simultaneous (mandatory) hand-counting --could go a long way towards making the use of optiscan acceptable. We must get hand-counting involved in the original counts, with specific procedures to follow in case of discrepancies.

In-precinct counting, where all sides agree on the totals for each precinct, (totals available immediately)-- obviously eliminates the central tabulator issue, since it would not be hard for citizens' groups to count precincts independently.

Agreed this could be the compromise...

[Amaryllis]

44. I am getting fucking pissed and I don't normally swear (at least not much)

but I am getting really sick of all this crap about first they steal our democracy and then they tell us we can't have paper ballots hand counted, and all we can do is try to secure an insecure system that was illegal from the get-go, by tweaking it with things like no more proprietary software, VVPB (if we are lucky) etc. etc. etc. !

I want a revoltion, damn it! I just talked to someone who was in the Ukraine when they had theirs and it made me really pissed! Maybe we alll need to just get pissed enough that we go camp out on the...capital steps? In front of the White House? In front of the senate? I don't know the details, but I think you get my point.

GO LAND SHARK! As Chuck Herrin says, "I want paper ballots and I want them now!" http://www.chuckherrin.com/paperballots.htm

I live in one of the few (only?) states with paper ballots but what good does that do if all the other states are so easy to rig? And we STILL have the damn Sequoia and ES & S tabulators even in Oregon, which we are working on, because the security of our system shouldn't be dependent on the honesty of our officials because that doens't help if we get a Blackwell clone.

There, now I feel better. Thanks for letting me vent.

[Wilms]

45. You've earned it.

:)

[Amaryllis]

46. Earned a vent or earned a revolution? :)

[Wilms]

47. You've earned the former.

The latter is on lay-away.

O8)

[Amaryllis]

48. How long on layaway? I want my revolution! (stomping foot on floor)