One In A Million Votes

by pyrrho

My standard is that no more than one in a million votes should be miscounted in any country and that we should do something about it in America.  This is not a partisan issue, I bear none of the typical grudges, e.g. about 2000, which I think showed that the system worked even though I disagreed with the Supreme Court of the US. The purpose of clean elections with rational processes for adjudication is to prevent civil war, so the system worked.

There should be a national mission to achieve that sort of nationwide accuracy, no more than one miscounted vote per million.

Comments

[Ryan Somma]

I agree pyrrho, and, thanks to Diebold, this dream is becoming reality. No more miscounted votes, because their electronic voting system prevents us from ever knowing if a vote was miscounted. : )

Glad you're still posting, wish I had more input to offer.

[Averroes]

A lofty goal.

somehow, i think that this involves chips implanted in the voter to verify identity. Of course, all bodies would have to be processed at death to remove or permanently deactivate the chips, which would be a major blow to Democratic politicians in places like Chicago.

Eventually, a chip directly in the brain would record the state of any voters preferences at the exact moment sp4ecified, without the necessity of his being even aware of it.

Here in oregon, we eliminated a lot of problems with the mail-in ballot.

btw, i'm not sure just how much of a problem mis-counting is. The bigger problem seems to be mis-marked or ambiguously marked ballots.

Of course, there was that last gubernatorial race up in Washington state, clearly won by the Repyblican. That is, until some Democratic office worker "found" a couple of bags of "votes" behind a file cabinet.

Ryan, with what in the Suporeme Court decision did you disagree? Was it the 7-2 decision to take the case, or the 5-4 decision that granting Gore the ability to pock and choose just which counties HE wanted to recount was not equal protection?

[Averroes]

Er--last question directed to pyrrho, butanyone can weigh in, of course.

I've noticed that one's opinion about the issue has more to do with how one liked the result, not about the legal arguments.

[pyrrho]

>>btw, i'm not sure just how much of a problem mis-counting is. The bigger problem seems to be mis-marked or ambiguously marked ballots.

miscounting is on the order of a couple votes per HUNDRED right now.

Mismarking requires mind reading unless you ask the voter at the polling place... which you just have. So you could give them two ballots and see if they mark them the same if you like.

I couldn't care less about mismarking frankly, you are free to worry about how to avoid it but it seems trivial to make an interface sound enough to expect the voter to master it.

with electronic voting you can of course present more than one way, e.g. if someone is voting using a stick in their mouth you can present them an interface that takes that into account.

[pyrrho]

I didn't like the part where, once it was implied that the correct equal protection ruling was to recount ALL the counties they instead let the votes be entered and recognized in the interest of "time".

I also disagreed with the 7-2 ruling to hear it in the first place, from my layman's perspective it seems that this was a state issue, as the states provide the votes. But as I say, the system worked, I am but a layman, and even if I were right they have been appointed, the process involves them, not me.

[pyrrho]

by the way, I thought recounting all the counties was a good idea when it was brought up at the time.

it's not wrong that just some would be counted though, GWB would have asked for some too, that's just a matter of someone saying which counties they dispute. Turns out if they had recounted them all Gore would have won, iirc, perhaps for you that can be poetic justice for his not asking for them all to be recount.

[Averroes]

pyrrho: "miscounting is on the order of a couple votes per HUNDRED right now."

>>Yep. this seems to be a sort of built in bottom, sort of like the 4% unemployment rate. While we can certainly evcision a 0% unemployment rate, it is just not going to happen.

Any new technology was offered as a "cure" for miscounting. i remember when a brand new, levered voting machine was brought to our school, way back then, and we wee ones were tpold that no erros in counting could occur with this machine because it was outomatic.

But miscounting is precisely why other systemms have come into use since.

pyrrho: "Mismarking requires mind reading unless you ask the voter at the polling place... "

>>No. One finds mismarked ballots by looking on the ballots. One finds, for instance, ballots where more than one candidate is marked where only one vote can be cast, ballots where stray marks indicate that the voter probably meant to mark someone, but didn't. Various unclear chads would also count as mismarked ballots. In oregon'ws mail ballots, a certain number arrive with coffee stains on them which make exact reading impossible.

I am quite distressed that you don't care about this.

pyrrho: "it seems trivial to make an interface sound enough to expect the voter to master it."

>>You left out the rimshot on this one-liner. thank you. You gqve me the laugh of the day.

pyrrho: "I didn't like the part where, once it was implied that the correct equal protection ruling was to recount ALL the counties they instead let the votes be entered and recognized in the interest of "time"."

I would be to if it happened that way. in fact, after all the time was wasted going to the various courts, the date required by Floeida LAW came up, preventing further recount. The only way to overcome that was for the Florida legislature to have leapt into session and changed the law.

pyrrho: "I also disagreed with the 7-2 ruling to hear it in the first place, from my layman's perspective it seems that this was a state issue, as the states provide the votes."

But equal protection is a federal issue. it is obvious that the Court, even those in the seven, were uncomfortable with this case.

Surely you wouldn't make this argument if Florida had a law that said that Negroes cannot be provided with a lawyer at public expense when charged with a crime. You know, "it's a state issue."

pyrrho: "by the way, I thought recounting all the counties was a good idea when it was brought up at the time."

>>I do , too. it's not often that you agree with the Republican position!

pyrrho: "Turns out if they had recounted them all Gore would have won,"

>>Actually, when we examined this one in detail over at Spinsanity, we found that it was more than likely that Bush would have won. I seem to remember that under all byut two recounting scenarios (the scenarios having to do with how to count the various disputed ballots), bush would have won, including those most likely to have been used. It is also true that if a complete count was done under the rules suggested by the Democrats, Bush would have won.

....I still think you should go for the chip method. Indeed, it is a very progressive approach. The dhip could, for instance, monitor your health, and when a problem is encountered, call for an ambulance or a government car as necessary to take you to the proper healthcare facility, where you could be subjected tpo whatever treatment was deemed to be in the people'ws best interest, since the health of everyone is a concern to us all.

etc., etc., etc.

[pyrrho]

>>Any new technology was offered as a "cure" for miscounting.

that has nothing to do with this, my plan obviously allows miscounting, and it's SO OBVIOUS that you are clearly being disengenuous. I said we miscount one in a million, not "none". Do you see you've made a mistake?

>>I am quite distressed that you don't care about this.

this comment is re: mismarking of votes.

I do care, and you must think I don't since I encouraged you to come up with solutions and said it was simple to make an adequate interface. I said you could probably solve it. Is leaving it to you a sign that I "don't care"? If so, why?

this, like your chip idea, are disengenous, not actually what concerns you, that is my guess.

it will always remain a guess, I can't read your mind, but it does not comport with the thrust of your arguments.

In all cases of your comments so far you do not engage the issue.

You pretend I hope to "cure" miscounting, when I acknowledge there has to be miscount, and obviously so in the title. You mention the chip and your concerns about voters that cannot vote, suuuurrrre, so you think there is some remedy for victims of the butterfly ballot or something. No one is stopping you from having an idea about that... if you really cared.

It's not sarcasm if it's actually disengenuous instead.

[Averroes]

pyrrho, you should really stop guessing and mindreading, and simply respond or askfor clerification. i never claimed to be the clearest of writers. (Thqt would be Wm. F. Buckley).

pyrrho: ">>Any new technology was offered as a "cure" for miscounting.

that has nothing to do with this, my plan obviously allows miscounting, and it's SO OBVIOUS that you are clearly being disengenuous. I said we miscount one in a million, not "none". Do you see you've made a mistake?"

>>No. In fact, YOU didn't offer a new technology. i was simply making a statement about history, with an example.

Where I touched upon your actual proposal was when I said that there seems to be an absolute floor on this, like on unemployment.

Personally, I am at a loss to explain miscounts in the case of mechanical ballots or computer balloting. We like to think of the mechanical and c0omputor versions of counting as flawless, with problems only arising from unreadable ballots, say, which aren't counted.

So, I think we should always strive to improve, but the 2% miscount figfure has been true for as long as i remember, except in Democratic places like Chicago. apparently the dead have more of a problem marking ballots. (btw, lest you read this sardonically, i am half-kidding.)

Anyway, if someone came up with a way to restrict miscounting to one in a million, it would certainly be touted as a cure. There are lot's of medical cures that don't do as well.

My God, you're serious.

pyrrho:">>I am quite distressed that you don't care about this.

this comment is re: mismarking of votes.

I do care, and you must think I don't since I encouraged you to come up with solutions and said it was simple to make an adequate interface. I said you could probably solve it. Is leaving it to you a sign that I "don't care"? If so, why?"

>>Gee, I dunno. I guess it was because you said:

I couldn't care less about mismarking frankly, you are free to worry about how to avoid it but it seems trivial to make an interface sound enough to expect the voter to master it.

Sorry, my mistake. I seem to be using another kind of English. I thought that "I couldn't care less about mismarking frankly" meant that you couldn't care less about mismarking. Sorry.

Let me try: our little cat got run over by a car a couple of weeks ago, requiring two surgeries and hand feeding for a week. I helped take him to the emergency vet in the middle of the night and to nurse him bqck to health. obviously I did this because I could care less about the cat, frankly.

Did i get that right?

pyrrho: "this, like your chip idea, are disengenous,"

>>Actually, pyrrho, i am dead on serious about the chip idea. obviously it would go a long way toward solving the identity issue, a solution to the old Democratic cry of "vote early, vote often." But i think that it could also help with the count somehow.

I admit that my more advanced notion of brain chips is now science fiction, but you must realize that people have for some time put chips in their pets, are now putting them in their babies, and some companies have had employees put them in themselves so that they can trverse the security in their buiness with ease. i think it is a matter of time until we all have them.

Those little radio chips are everywhere. They are used to track shipments, keep inventory, and for security in retail stores. most people don't realize that that shirt they are wearing has a chip in the collar, so that someone with the right receiver could stand at the turnstyle at the subway and count how many people who pass through are wearing what kind of shirt. You know, they don't take them out at checkout.

i know there are obvious privacy issues here, especially with the chips as they are now. but there is no reason that as they develop, these chips cpould ot be linked to bank accounts, credit, and everything else. your bartender could note your coming and have your drink ready when you walked through the door. And you would be assured that the voting system recorded your vote.

The one thing that does strike me here is that the 2% miscount, which used to bother me, bothers me less now because I have been convinced that it doesn't make any practical difference. i would be happier with it gone, and I am sure that it makes a difference once in a long while, probably in some local election where the number of total votes is about 100. But, by and large, we would expect that the miscount would fall about as the correct count would, and would not have an effect on the vote. One in a million would make us more sure of that.

The real appeal of machine counting is that it is a balm for our nagging anxiety about human counters. (Note that this anxiety was not helped by watching the Florida count in action, with fat old white guys squinting into the light to see what a chad was, alternately taking their specs on and off.) mostly, we are afraid that someone is going to steal an election directly by simply counting dishonestly.

But i am not sure how often this happens anymore, either. Most places i know have elaborate mechanisms to ensure that the counting is honest, at least with regards to Republicans and Democrats. (Socialists and Libertarians seem never to be on the counting committee.)

pyrrho: "You pretend I hope to "cure" miscounting,"

>>Where? How?

pyrrho: "so you think there is some remedy for victims of the butterfly ballot or something."

>>The solution is to get rid of it. it is confusing to enough people as to be useless.

pyrrho: "if you really cared."

>>Now you are really mindreading, wrong as usual, and being insulting besides. Why WOULDN'T I care about getting accurate results from elections. What in anything i have ever said that you know about on any website at all would indicate to you that i think it is just fine if we simply determine who wins an election by throwing the ballots down the stairs after assigning each step to a candidate, and count how many ballots land on each stair?

What you are saying is that i am unAmerican.

I hope you will reconsider these remarks and offer an apology.

I mean, them's duelling words.

[pyrrho]

>pyrrho:">>I am quite distressed that you don't care about this.

this comment is re: mismarking of votes.

I do care, and you must think I don't since I encouraged you to come up with solutions and said it was simple to make an adequate interface. I said you could probably solve it. Is leaving it to you a sign that I "don't care"? If so, why?"

>>Gee, I dunno. I guess it was because you said:

I couldn't care less about mismarking frankly, you are free to worry about how to avoid it but it seems trivial to make an interface sound enough to expect the voter to master it.

Sorry, my mistake. I seem to be using another kind of English. I thought that "I couldn't care less about mismarking frankly" meant that you couldn't care less about mismarking. Sorry.

I have this above for reference but I pity those that have to read it... but clearly, AGAIN, I DO CARE. I just happen to care in the lowest level, a level below which there isn't a level. The lowest level of caring is not "not caring", not in English. In English "caring" and "not caring" are considered distinct.

[pyrrho]

>>Actually, pyrrho, i am dead on serious about the chip idea. obviously it would go a long way toward solving the identity issue, a solution to the old Democratic cry of "vote early, vote often." But i think that it could also help with the count somehow

You're "serious" but you are not actually ADVOCATING it, you are trying to slyly present it as a logical conclusion of caring about counting votes, and of "progressivism" etc. That's how it looks to me, feel free to make a clarification.

[darkhorse]

1/1000000= 285 total miscounted votes per the US 2000 census, or (for example) a total of 33 in the largest state (CA). If that's your goal, might as well shoot for none. Either is fanciful, I think, though well-intentioned.

[darkhorse]

Sorry about those calculations- the number is much lower as applied to voting Americans.

[darkhorse]

121,068,721- the number of US votes for Kerry and Bush 2004. So the goal would be 121 or less miscounted votes in the US.

[Averroes]

pyrrho: "AGAIN, I DO CARE. I just happen to care in the lowest level, a level below which there isn't a level. The lowest level of caring is not "not caring", not in English. In English "caring" and "not caring" are considered distinct."

Now that you have stated it correctly, i am not saying that you don't care. But, in fact, "I couldn't care less" DOES mean that you don't care. It means that on the scale of carinhg, there is no instance more negative than yours possible.

Here is a discussion of this and a related phrase from Bartleby:

"I could care less! you might say sometime in disgust. You might just as easily have said I couldn’t care less and meant the same thing! How can this be? When taken literally, the phrase I could care less means “I care more than I might,” rather than “I don’t care at all.” But the beauty of sarcasm is that it can turn meanings on their head, thus allowing could care less to work as an equivalent for couldn’t care less. Because of its sarcasm, could care less is more informal than its negative counterpart and may be open to misinterpretation when used in writing. 1
The phrases cannot but and can but present a similar case of a positive and a negative meaning the same thing."

Obviouslly, Bartleby thinks that both phrases mean that you don't care. In fact, that is the way i've always heard them used.

From the Columbia Journal review, noting the positive usage in an article:

"The article said the lawyer representing a murder victim's family made it clear that the family wasn't interested in cooperating with the media horde, "that the family could care less about exclusives." But if those people could care less, they do care some, and that's not what the writer meant. The phrase has to be negative: "could not care less." That means the family cares so little — presumably not at all — that it can't reduce the caring any further. A quick Nexis search suggests that we bat about .500 on this one, which would be great if baseball were our game."

Think of it this way. If you are saying that you conld not care less, you are saying that there is no level of caring between your level and zero, not caring at all. But we can easily show that if there is no level between yours and zero, yours is zero.

That is because, for two numbers to be different, one must be able to add them up and divide by two, and get a third number. tjhis number will be between the two numbers. So, if you added your level of caring to zero and divided the result by two, one would expect that if you could care less, there would be a level of caring that would appear which would be halfway between your level and zero. But this violates the condition already put on, noamely that there is no level lower than yours. thus, your level of caring in this statement is exactly zero.

btw, one can use this same method to show that 1 and .999999-> (where -> means taken out to infinity) are the same number. Simply add them up to get 1.9999-> and divide by two. Since you get .9999->, you know that there is no number between the two. and they are simply two different ways of representing the number one.

For a different way to look at this problem, try fractions. You knopw that one-third and two-thirds add up to one, and can be represented decimally by .3333-> and .6666-> respectively. If you add these decimal representations together, you get our old friend, .9999->.

One last note. Let's say that you wsere lost in the desert for a couple of days before being found. Someone asks you if you ate anything. you say, "I couldn't have eaten less." How much did you eat? Nothing, of course, because any finite amount of food you may have eaten could have been halved (Lucretiousw not withstanding) and you could have eaten less.

[Averroes]

Chips:

"You're "serious" but you are not actually ADVOCATING it,"

>>I am quite clearly advoicatingit, although i must admit that I also think that such chips are inevitable. i think they are inevitable because they will be so advantageous to the user. One can think of a system which would read your chip to verify your identity, then record your fingerprint as you pressed the yes button for your candidate. This second level of verification would be used in the counting. All tyhat is required now is to make sure that the ballots are not irrevocabluy mismarked. Before the votes were recorded, one of those familiar boxews might appear on the screen:

You voted for John Kerry. Are you sure?

With the Yes and No boxes below.

One can even imagine a box like this:

Youi have written in Michael moore for president. Is that correct?

with the yes and No boxes, and followed by a box similar to the John Kerry box above.

Darkhorse: "If that's your goal, might as well shoot for none. Either is fanciful, I think, though well-intentioned."

>>Exactly. But that's why we have ideals. of course, in the meantime we hope to get the miscount down to 1.75%, and to continue to lower it, all the while keeping our eyes on the prize, the perfect (large-scale) vote count.

It's a lot like civil rights: we never expect to get to a place where thingws are so perfect that they couldn't be better, and we continue, therefore, to work for the better.

btw, catch the SCOTUS arguments concerning GITMO today? i continue to be proud that the man behind this case presented today is actually a military lowyer, here arguing (through another team member, with standing in the court) against his own commander in chief, as he has been doing for three years. I can't think of too many places w3here this could happen, and less where it could happen and the man remain in uniform!

Outside the court after arguments, both men gave rousing declarations why we in america cannot allow men of any nation to fall into a legal sinkhole.

They spoke directly to American ideals. i was moved.

[Averroes]

Chips:

"You're "serious" but you are not actually ADVOCATING it,"

>>I am quite clearly advoicatingit, although i must admit that I also think that such chips are inevitable. i think they are inevitable because they will be so advantageous to the user. One can think of a system which would read your chip to verify your identity, then record your fingerprint as you pressed the yes button for your candidate. This second level of verification would be used in the counting. All tyhat is required now is to make sure that the ballots are not irrevocabluy mismarked. Before the votes were recorded, one of those familiar boxews might appear on the screen:

You voted for John Kerry. Are you sure?

With the Yes and No boxes below.

One can even imagine a box like this:

Youi have written in Michael moore for president. Is that correct?

with the yes and No boxes, and followed by a box similar to the John Kerry box above.

Darkhorse: "If that's your goal, might as well shoot for none. Either is fanciful, I think, though well-intentioned."

>>Exactly. But that's why we have ideals. of course, in the meantime we hope to get the miscount down to 1.75%, and to continue to lower it, all the while keeping our eyes on the prize, the perfect (large-scale) vote count.

It's a lot like civil rights: we never expect to get to a place where thingws are so perfect that they couldn't be better, and we continue, therefore, to work for the better.

btw, catch the SCOTUS arguments concerning GITMO today? i continue to be proud that the man behind this case presented today is actually a military lowyer, here arguing (through another team member, with standing in the court) against his own commander in chief, as he has been doing for three years. I can't think of too many places where this could happen, and less where it could happen and the man remain in uniform!

Outside the court after arguments, both men gave rousing declarations why we in america cannot allow men of any nation to fall into a legal sinkhole.

They spoke directly to American ideals. i was moved.

[Averroes]

btw, I found this little essay, which cites the Oxford English Dictonary, apparently looking down their nose at Americans, here.

[Averroes]

Not sure how that doubled/ sorry

[pyrrho]

darkhorse,

no, it's the amazing nature of technology.

We cannot ensure people mark a ballot as intended, but we CAN make sure that each one is counted.

It's the 21'st century and it is possible and not even particularly complicated. If we get half way, I'm fine with that as well.

How many bank transactions fail, and also fail to be detected as failing? I don't know the statistics, but that's what we are talking about.

Computers are VERY GOOD at counting.

VERY GOOD.

Just don't let Diebold build them with crappy engineering.

It needs good engineering, we need to demand good engineering.

Our WHOLE SYSTEM relies on democracy, there can hardly be a more important part of the infrastructure in a way, though obviously I wouldn't want to waste money on it.

This is doable and not wasteful, and also, preparation for a century during which by all rights democracy should take root throughout the rest of the world.

[pyrrho]

I don't believe you about the chip.

[Brooke]

Does anyone know if, amidst all the concern over systems for vote counting, there has been any mention of the problem of incompetent poll workers?

Now maybe most places have their act together, but I worked the polls in NYC for the primary and the November election in 2004, and I was completely blown away by how badly the polls were run. Those of us who were new were poorly trained, and we got no on-the-job help, seeing as how the regulars were some of the worst at it. In fact, the level of competence appeared to be inversely proportional to the number of years they'd been working the polls.

I understand that the machines themselves are the biggest concern, but I swear half the battle is getting TO the machine. A bunch of the names on the voter rolls were out of alphabetical order, so voters were getting turned away or sent to fill out the dreaded paper ballot. And, for the primary, I remember at the end of the night when we were doing the final counts, the woman running the show was so concerned about getting out and going home that night that she was rushing us newbies (who barely knew what we were doing as it was) so much that it wouldn't have been a wonder if mistakes were made.

During our utterly useless three-hour orientation -- where the trainer's primary concern was making sure we all knew the difference between odd and even numbers, for when we had to look up voters' street addresses -- we kept reading all of this stuff in the handbook about special situations in which both a Republican and Democrat poll worker had to be present. I kept thinking, 'Gee, where are they gonna find all these Republicans to work the polls in this city?' Sure enough, when I get my letter telling me which poll site I'll be working, I discover that I have been assigned the role of "Republican Inspector." I'm registered Independent, so it almost makes sense they'd do this, but come to find on election day that the polls are filled with genuine Democrats who have been ASSIGNED to be Republicans. It's hysterical.

The whole thing was really a train wreck, and I had a hard time not laughing at people that year who were scared that the Republicans (this is NYC, mind you) were going to be messing around with the election. I was much more concerned about the people put in charge of running the polls.

Anyway, like I said, maybe people know what they're doing in other towns. But after seeing it firsthand, it's amazing to me that this problem hasn't come up more.

[pyrrho]

brooke,

great point.

in my thinking on this, and in general, I have tried to find the basic point from which the rest follows.

I believe we need a fixed election infrastructure, I believe a non-partisan agency needs to be formed to operate this infrastructure, and take over the training and deployment of our volunteer citizen poll workers.

I do in fact believe the fixed infrastructure and the organization running it, being founded for sound engineering goals, will inevitably have to sort those sources of error. A fixed infrastructure, engineering wise, has a way of helping sort out such issues because it provides a constant reference point to which everything else is built, including training, etc.

As for rolls with voters out of order... that is directly addressed by having a consistent and well engineered system.

[pyrrho]

btw, Brooke, my ideas are far from final, though I've given it a lot of thought and am confident in the parts I do say, I'm also open to better ideas.

The main sentiment does follow from what you say, our election process is not clean, it's a mess, it needs a good general cleaning up, and we also need to show respect for it. Frankly, we take democracy for granted and it does not work that way.

[darkhorse]

Just finished nineteen consecutive very long days of work so sorry about the cranky tone of my last posts. Also did read Averroes's last posts on another subject, Guantanamo, in the now gone thread about force feeding which disappeared over this time frame, that contained some appreciated information. Yes, computers count well, and it is not too lofty an ideal to aspire to 'No voter left behind'. However, at a certain point for me the process is like putting a nice shine on your 16 year old Yugo, given that the electoral college system is anything but a fair conduit for those votes. In my view. I imagine that there are other so-called democratic systems of government in which votes are weighted according to geography, or are there? The presidential vote should be a straight up and down count, not filtered through a bunch of yahoos wearing hats at a convention. In my view. This is far more an impediment to what most people would consider true democracy than the difference between getting 1/1000 or 1/1000000 million votes wrong. In my view.