Re: Hand Counting Ballots

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Kell:

On Sat, 15 Nov 2003 19:23:13 -0800 (PST), you wrote:

>Thanks Ralph and Evan for mentioning hand counting and Paul for his [somewhat petulant] responses.  It would be helpful to get facts, though.

When I first heard Evan talk about hand counting ballots I must admit that I
thought he was a crank.

But I gave it some thought and I continue to give it thought and Evan is
absolutely correct.



Every ten years this country goes through the ritual and constitutional
necessity of conducting a census.  We could, of course, do things
statistically but the requirement of actually going out and counting each
person one-by-one serves to establishes a baseline from which other valid
statistical abstracts can be obtained.

In an election we have to have a good baseline.  The best baseline is a hand
count of the entire population of ballots.  As a matter of democracy we
should have the best reasonable baseline and not merely a good baseline.  A
hand count - even if it is wrong by 1% - is still a far better baseline than
the unknowable and easily manipulatable count produced electronically.

I - as a recent amateur poll watcher - can understand and follow a hand
count.  I can't follow the count produced by a scanner as it processes two
sides of a ballot (one of which I can't see) at a rate of one-per-second.

As a Libertarian, I hate government waste.  I hate spending public money on
just about anything.

But of all the things that government should spend money on, verifiable,
honest, and easily monitored elections is way up at the top of my list.


Evan, there are times when even a Leftist can be right.

Sorry, just had to say that.  :-)

Ralph


> 
>kell