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Do you see a role for the electronic machine to provide a count as well? My sense is that the switch to electronic machines (and the switch to mechanical booths

Do you see a role for the electronic machine to provide a count as well? My sense is that the switch to electronic machines (and the switch to mechanical booths prior) had to have been driven at least in part to make the preliminary count easier to obtain.

Mbioguy 8y ago
For those of us who want to switch to alternate electoral methods like RCV, approval voting, multimember districting, etc, using machine counting is a big deal. If you are paper only, the increased labor to do repeated tabulations (as is done to an extent in RCV) is significant. It is the reason a bill to implement RCV in a state I used to live failed, after passing the state house and being discussed for some time in the state senate. Whatever counting method you are using and whatever reporting method you are using, it needs to be verifiable. I still can't believe we had ballots from 2016 that were destroyed after brin subpoenaed, without any consequence for those who had charge of their possession and safety.
- beat 8y ago
  I beg to differ. I live in Minneapolis, where we do RCV on paper. It has not caused any of the problems you're talking about.
roganartu 8y ago
Counting paper votes is a solved problem, and nations that use entirely paper ballots don't have slow preliminary counts. Australia, for example, has a somewhat complicated preferential voting system and relies entirely on paper ballots, and yet they are generally able to provide a conclusive result the night of an election (with televised tracking of counts throughout the country). This may not make sense intuitively, but counting paper scales quite well by being distributed to the polling locations and physically sorting the paper ballots. The Australian Electoral Commission documents the counting process quite thoroughly [0]. The only time counting paper takes a long time to get a win/lose result is when results are close enough that every vote needs to be counted. This is surprisingly rare in practice. [0]: https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/index.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/index.htm
michaelt 8y ago
I don't feel we have a track record of responding well to elections where irregularities are suspected. Especially after a winner has been declared, and the loser has conceded. I mean, the 2000 US presidential election had a recount... that was cancelled. The Brexit referendum had a bunch of spending irregularities... but the result stands. The 2016 US presidential election had allegations of Russian interference... but the result stands. It's pointless having an early electronic result and a late paper result if the early result always stands - the late paper result gives you nothing except a false sense of security.
- learc83 8y ago
  >I mean, the 2000 US presidential election had a recount... that was cancelled. The Brexit referendum had a bunch of spending irregularities... but the result stands. The 2016 US presidential election had allegations of Russian interference... but the result stands. In none of those cases was there proof that actual vote counts were altered. There are still ongoing investigations into Russia's interference, but the side that the interference helped is the on that's currently in power, and there's enough ambiguity for them to avoid taking any direct action. If we'd had a paper ballots that proved that Russia hacked voting machines and actually changed 100k or so votes--I'm 100% confident we'd have had a completely different outcome.
  - michaelt 8y ago
    In none of those cases was there proof that actual vote counts were altered. I was thinking more of the recounts that were cancelled. If you can't recount to check if vote counts were altered without first having proof that vote counts were altered, what's the point? More broadly, I hoped to illustrate the fact winners oppose fishing expeditions to double-check election integrity. I simply don't believe we have the option of getting the result wrong on the first announcement. It has to be right the first time. And because it has to be right first time, we should apply our most trusted counting method the first time; the addition of an early-but-untrustworthy count is a move in the wrong direction.
    - 8y ago
ninkendo 8y ago
I think I'd rather just have the paper ballots counted by a separate machine/person. I know it's redundant but it's worth it to have the systems totally independent of one another (and independently upgradable). It's the IRL equivalent of sacrificing some DRYness to achieve loose coupling.

Mbioguy 8y ago

For those of us who want to switch to alternate electoral methods like RCV, approval voting, multimember districting, etc, using machine counting is a big deal. If you are paper only, the increased labor to do repeated tabulations (as is done to an extent in RCV) is significant. It is the reason a bill to implement RCV in a state I used to live failed, after passing the state house and being discussed for some time in the state senate. Whatever counting method you are using and whatever reporting method you are using, it needs to be verifiable. I still can't believe we had ballots from 2016 that were destroyed after brin subpoenaed, without any consequence for those who had charge of their possession and safety.

beat 8y ago
I beg to differ. I live in Minneapolis, where we do RCV on paper. It has not caused any of the problems you're talking about.

roganartu 8y ago

Counting paper votes is a solved problem, and nations that use entirely paper ballots don't have slow preliminary counts. Australia, for example, has a somewhat complicated preferential voting system and relies entirely on paper ballots, and yet they are generally able to provide a conclusive result the night of an election (with televised tracking of counts throughout the country). This may not make sense intuitively, but counting paper scales quite well by being distributed to the polling locations and physically sorting the paper ballots. The Australian Electoral Commission documents the counting process quite thoroughly [0]. The only time counting paper takes a long time to get a win/lose result is when results are close enough that every vote needs to be counted. This is surprisingly rare in practice. [0]: https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/index.htm https://www.aec.gov.au/Voting/counting/index.htm

michaelt 8y ago

I don't feel we have a track record of responding well to elections where irregularities are suspected. Especially after a winner has been declared, and the loser has conceded. I mean, the 2000 US presidential election had a recount... that was cancelled. The Brexit referendum had a bunch of spending irregularities... but the result stands. The 2016 US presidential election had allegations of Russian interference... but the result stands. It's pointless having an early electronic result and a late paper result if the early result always stands - the late paper result gives you nothing except a false sense of security.

learc83 8y ago
>I mean, the 2000 US presidential election had a recount... that was cancelled. The Brexit referendum had a bunch of spending irregularities... but the result stands. The 2016 US presidential election had allegations of Russian interference... but the result stands. In none of those cases was there proof that actual vote counts were altered. There are still ongoing investigations into Russia's interference, but the side that the interference helped is the on that's currently in power, and there's enough ambiguity for them to avoid taking any direct action. If we'd had a paper ballots that proved that Russia hacked voting machines and actually changed 100k or so votes--I'm 100% confident we'd have had a completely different outcome.
- michaelt 8y ago
  In none of those cases was there proof that actual vote counts were altered. I was thinking more of the recounts that were cancelled. If you can't recount to check if vote counts were altered without first having proof that vote counts were altered, what's the point? More broadly, I hoped to illustrate the fact winners oppose fishing expeditions to double-check election integrity. I simply don't believe we have the option of getting the result wrong on the first announcement. It has to be right the first time. And because it has to be right first time, we should apply our most trusted counting method the first time; the addition of an early-but-untrustworthy count is a move in the wrong direction.
  - 8y ago

ninkendo 8y ago

I think I'd rather just have the paper ballots counted by a separate machine/person. I know it's redundant but it's worth it to have the systems totally independent of one another (and independently upgradable). It's the IRL equivalent of sacrificing some DRYness to achieve loose coupling.