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This is absolute hogwash, there are other methods than a full hand recount if you have a paper trail, some of which only require counting a small number of the

This is absolute hogwash, there are other methods than a full hand recount if you have a paper trail, some of which only require counting a small number of the ballots by hand. The best example of this is a Risk Limiting Audit (RLA). You only have to re-count a smaller number of ballots until the overwhelming probability is that the vote is confirmed, or that the vote is rejected. Depending on the disparity between the ballot options, this count can actually be very small. See: https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/Preprints/gentle12.pdf https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/Preprints/gentle12.pdf This system is perfect for this kind of an audit -- essentially a ballot marking device written by an organization known for formal verification.

specialist 8y ago
During the mid aughts, the consensus of the Election Verification Network (EVN) crowd (academics, election administrators, feds) was that audits were no better than manual recounts and just as expensive. I'll read the paper you linked, but know that it's contrary to the received wisdom, and I'm very skeptical of any claims that auditing elections are feasible or worthwhile. By audit, I mean anything short of a full manual recount. -- Okay. I lightly read that paper. First, it specifically says to only audit the VVPR, meaning the actual ballots, not the VVPAT, which is just what the computer says it recorded. So there might be some miscommunication. I assumed #bdamm was referring to the VVPAT. Second, the meat of the paper is refinements for calculating the confidence that the official result is correct based on recounting a sample. All of the caveats with audits, not within the scope of this paper, remain the same.
- mspecter 8y ago
  More reading: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/22/566039611/colorado-launches-first-in-the-nation-post-election-audits https://www.npr.org/2017/11/22/566039611/colorado-launches-f... Colorado successfully performed an RLA, and didn't have to recount every ballot. If you really want to read more, Free and Fair (IIRC, the same group bidding on the DARPA grant) has open source software and instructions on how to perform RLAs: https://github.com/FreeAndFair/ColoradoRLA https://github.com/FreeAndFair/ColoradoRLA

specialist 8y ago

During the mid aughts, the consensus of the Election Verification Network (EVN) crowd (academics, election administrators, feds) was that audits were no better than manual recounts and just as expensive. I'll read the paper you linked, but know that it's contrary to the received wisdom, and I'm very skeptical of any claims that auditing elections are feasible or worthwhile. By audit, I mean anything short of a full manual recount. -- Okay. I lightly read that paper. First, it specifically says to only audit the VVPR, meaning the actual ballots, not the VVPAT, which is just what the computer says it recorded. So there might be some miscommunication. I assumed #bdamm was referring to the VVPAT. Second, the meat of the paper is refinements for calculating the confidence that the official result is correct based on recounting a sample. All of the caveats with audits, not within the scope of this paper, remain the same.

mspecter 8y ago
More reading: https://www.npr.org/2017/11/22/566039611/colorado-launches-first-in-the-nation-post-election-audits https://www.npr.org/2017/11/22/566039611/colorado-launches-f... Colorado successfully performed an RLA, and didn't have to recount every ballot. If you really want to read more, Free and Fair (IIRC, the same group bidding on the DARPA grant) has open source software and instructions on how to perform RLAs: https://github.com/FreeAndFair/ColoradoRLA https://github.com/FreeAndFair/ColoradoRLA