Re: Commissioners pass the buck; Plan Boulder meet tomorrow on voting systems

[Ralph Shnelvar <ralphs@xxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Al:

On Fri, 23 Apr 2004 12:39:30 -0600, you wrote:

>Think about Ralph's math in the context of a non-profit organization.  And
>pay only for correct counts.

I don't understand why a non-profit would be much different.

>
>If the counting system were verifiable, even a biased counting team would
>produce correct results.

Indeed, the efficacy of having poll watchers do "random sampling" (that is,
simply watch the votes being counted for a random collection of short
periods without having to interfere - at all! - with the vote count) while
the count was being done would likely be enough to indicate if a recount
needed to be done.

>
>Al

Ralph

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Ralph Shnelvar [mailto:ralphs@xxxxxxxxx] 
>Sent: Friday, April 23, 2004 11:32 AM
>To: Evan Daniel Ravitz
>Cc: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; valenty@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Aaron Toso;
>Clay Evans; Robert Mcgrath; Judd Golden; sam@xxxxxxxx; joel@xxxxxxxx;
>michael@xxxxxxxx
>Subject: Re: Commissioners pass the buck; Plan Boulder meet tomorrow on
>voting systems
>
>Dear Evan and all:
>
>On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 14:01:40 -0600 (MDT), you wrote:
>
>>
>>Folks,
>>
>
>[snip]
>
>>
>>The Commissioners withheld their trump card until AFTER the public
>>hearing was finished: they quickly calculated it would take
>>"hundreds" of extra election judges to hand-count an election here,
>>and declared it, variously, "very difficult", "impractical" and
>>"impossible."
>>
>>(For $1.7 million, I'd be happy to organize a crew to do so. Hell,
>>for $50,000.)
>
>Let's see, that would be about 100,000 votes to be counted.  Right?
>
>Professional signature gatherers charge about $1 for each petition
>signature.  That includes: Legible name, address, zip code, signature.  It
>also includes standing around in the cold and rain.  We wouldn't be asking
>that of the vote counters.
>
>
>
>Let's say that a hand-count of a simple yes/no with 10 items would cost $1
>for each ballot cast.
>
>So it would cost $100,000 per election to count the votes.
>
>$1.7 million @ 3% earns $50,000 per year.  I'm sure the city can do better
>than that.
>
>Thus, if they just put that $1.7 in a low-yielding bank account and they
>withdrew $100,000 per year, they could run elections for - at least! - the
>next 34 years.  The equipment would be rusty dust by then.
>
>
>
>The incompetence of the County in even simple financial matters is
>staggering.
>
>Ralph Shnelvar
>