Re: recounts in Colorado (under present law) -- The definition of insanity

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Bo:

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 00:47:44 -0700, you wrote:

>Evan,
>Errors are errors.
>Secret ones and conspiracies and all are a bit paranoid.

Really?

With the results of elections controlling billions of dollars (think of the
recently defeated Proposition A), the more compelling it is to control those
results.

>Stop being a Luddite.

He's not the Luddite.  I am.

Here's my background: I've been a computer programmer more-or-less
continuously since 1964.  For 10 years I did complex econometric modeling.
After that I was a consultant to companies like Exxon doing numerical
optimization (so that they could keep down their costs when moving oil
around).  Fascinating stuff.

Since the late 1980's I've had a company that has done nothing but backup
and disaster recovery software.

Now that you know how much of a Luddite I am, you can understand that I have
a technical understanding of both advanced statistics and computer
programming as well as a fairly good grasp of econometrics.

And I'm terrified of these machines.

>Technology can give us the ability to be error free as well as fraud proof..

No it can't.

By what argument can you make such an assertion?

>We have to mold it to our purposes, not let it take over our process.
>This *is* possible.
>Just because something has been done for a long time is not a good reason to
>continue it. In fact, it's probably a good reason to *not* continue it. This
>is a dynamic world we live in and everything has to adapt. To not change is
>to stagnate and die.

My next door neighbor has been an election judge for many, many years.
Elaborate mechanisms were put into place in order to minimize election
fraud.

Those are good mechanisms.

Bo, just because something is new does not make it better. Similarly, just
because something is new does not make it worse.  

Our freedoms hang in the balance.  To do something new with how our votes
are counted without proper and in-depth thought to the process can and will
lead to someone hijacking the process.

If you want to hear about low-tech hijacking of elections just contact Sunny
Maynard of the Green Party.  She'll tell you some hair-raising stories.



One of the questions people sometimes ask me is: We use credit cards and
electronic transactions every day to move trillions of dollars around.  Do
you really want to go back to barter and hand-written bank drafts?

The answer: The basic difference between Electronic Funds Transfers (EFT)
and electronic voting is that voting is anonymous.  When an EFT goes astray,
someone gets hurt and yells.  When a vote goes astray then NOBODY KNOWS.



With statistical sampling of the votes (a la HR2239) you can dramatically
reduce the probability of fraud.  But there are still problems.

Consider a close election.  Let's say that polling data shows that your side
is losing by 6%.  Further, let us say that the stakes are really very high:
billions of dollars.  If you get caught then you go to jail.  If you don't
get caught then you end up being millions of dollars richer.  

There are plenty of people willing to make a much less lucrative a deal with
the devil.  Just ask your local pusher.

So let's say that there are 300 polling places representing 30,000 votes and
that Company X controls the software.  If "your side" is low by 6% then the
vote would be 14100/15900.  To win you've got to skew 2000 votes.

Company X knows that 1.5% of the polling places (5 polling places out of
300) will be hand counted.

If Company X knows which 5 places then manipulating the election is trivial.
I leave this as an exercise for the reader.

If Company X does not know which 5 polling places will be hand counted, then
things are a bit more difficult but not impossible.  All that need be done
is that 30 polling places have their results heavily skewed.  Instead of
each polling place having a (average) of 47 yes v 53 no, you shift it to 80
yes v 20 no for the 30 polling places that Company X is manipulating.

Now the total vote is 15090.  Voila!  You've won and the chances of being
caught are less than 1 in 5.



No, Bo, hand counting is necessary to preserve the honesty of the system.

>
>Bo

Ralph


>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Evan Daniel Ravitz" <evan@xxxxxxxx>
>To: "LPBC Chairman" <chairman@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Cc: "Paul Tiger" <Paul.Tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; "BCV" <bcv@xxxxxxxxxxx>;
>"William Crook" <slayer@xxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Sunday, November 23, 2003 9:25 AM
>Subject: Re: recounts in Colorado (under present law) -- The definition of
>insanity
>
>
>>
>> Bo, Canada (20-something million people) and Britain both hand-count
>> ballots. It's been done for hundreds of years. The journey of 1000
>> miles begins with a single step, counting a million starts with one.
>> It's "scalable". I'm sure it's more error prone than computer
>> counting, but with the proper measures, those are honest errors
>> instead of secret ones which can never be discovered now.
>>
>> Evan
>>
>> On Sat, 22 Nov 2003, LPBC Chairman wrote:
>>
>> > Evan....
>> >
>> > Hand counting???
>> > a hundred thousand ballots???
>> > (in Boulder County alone....)
>> > And you think *that* would be more accurate???
>> > Maybe someday you should volunteer at the Clerks office and see what it
>> > takes to just open and sort ballots by hand......let alone count them.
>You
>> > would be amazed at the errors people make.
>> >
>> > We need to come up with a way to make technology work.
>> >
>> > Bo
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: "Paul Tiger" <tigerp@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> > To: "Evan Daniel Ravitz" <evan@xxxxxxxx>; <paul.tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> > Cc: "BCV" <bcv@xxxxxxxxxxx>; "William Crook" <slayer@xxxxxxxxx>; "Bo
>> > Shaffer" <bo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>> > Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 6:46 PM
>> > Subject: RE: recounts in Colorado (under present law) -- The definition
>of
>> > insanity
>> >
>> >
>> > > No, Ben Franklin actually. Go do your homework.
>> > >
>> > > -----Original Message-----
>> > > From: Evan Daniel Ravitz [mailto:evan@xxxxxxxx]
>> > > Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 1:18 PM
>> > > To: paul.tiger@xxxxxxxxxxxx
>> > > Cc: BCV; William Crook; Bo Shaffer
>> > > Subject: Re: recounts in Colorado (under present law) -- The
>definition of
>> > > insanity
>> > >
>> > >
>> > > On Fri, 21 Nov 2003, Paul Tiger wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over
>and
>> > > > expecting different results." -- Benjamin Franklin
>> > >
>> > > Einstein, actually. State law mandates recounts by the same method as
>> > > the original count. That's why I support hand-counting until the State
>> > > law is changed; public-source software isn't as good as hand-counting,
>> > > but much better than secret software used over and over.
>> > >
>> > > Evan
>> > >
>> > > ----------------------------------------------
>> > > Evan Ravitz     303 440 6838     evan@xxxxxxxx
>> > > Vote for the National Initiative! www.vote.org
>> > > Photo Adventures:          www.vote.org/photos
>> > >
>> > > Kucinich: the ONLY candidate to vote against the
>> > > "Patriot" Act and the Iraq war:  www.kucinich.us
>> > > ------------------------------------------------
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>