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No Hand Counting of Electronic Votes

Posted by pudge on from the score-one-for-sanity dept.

In the Washington state gubernatorial election, the hand recount has begun, and Snohomish County -- which had nearly 100K votes cast on Sequoia electronic voting machines -- won't have to print up and count them all by hand, as had been previously thought by county officials. Instead, they will print up the totals from each of the 937 machines, and compare those to the grand total. (The statewide hand recount is expected to complete before Christmas, modulo court challenges.)

6 of 56 comments (clear)

  1. That wouldn't matter anyway by b00m3rang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless the printouts were done as each voter voted, there's no accountability. Of course printing out the total from the machine is going to give you the same total that the machine gave you.

    There is no way to recount the electronic "votes"

  2. What!? by krymsin01 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Instead, they will print up the totals from each of the 937 machines, and compare those to the grand total.
    Uh, and how does that help out? Maybe I'm being dense, but that doesn't seem like it'll diagnose any kind of problem that would matter...
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    1. Re:What!? by sckienle · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Actually, this is exactly the process of recounting votes in the old pull the lever machines. They did not keep individual votes either. The recount was to make sure the process of tallying the votes "up stream" from the machines was correct; or really to check the math and communications of the humans doing the sums based on the reported numbers called into the election offices. The difference between then and now is that our parents trusted those machines, and we here on /. don't trust the electronic versions.

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      I don't see things in black and white; I see the gray. Heck, I actually see in color, which makes things more difficult
  3. It does matter. by TheLink · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's just a matter of how stupid/apathetic they think the voters are.

    Hypothetical scenarios:
    If the voters are stupid, then they'd print everything out and do a full manual recount.

    If they are very stupid, then they'd do this.

    If they are completely stupid, there wouldn't be a recount.

    The end objective is to convince the voters that everything is fine and they can resume their normal programming.

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  4. If they actually were looking for a problem by Unknown+Poltroon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    woudnt it make sense to pick 10 machines at random(or something), and then do a hand count for each machine, and compare that to the electronic total? If they all match, than youre probably ok. THis is just stupid.

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  5. But, there's NOTHING to recount! by b00m3rang · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's say a person votes for candidate A, their screen shows candidate A, and the vote is recorded for candidate B. EVERY TIME you "recount" that machine, it's going to give you the wrong vote. Unless there's a printout that the voter can verify, and then place into a ballot box, ther IS NO REAL RECOUNT.