Re: [Fwd: RE: MTBF for voting machines] part 2
Title: Re: [Fwd: RE: MTBF for voting machines] part 2
I disagree with the statement that "Loss of 300 votes in one
machine is much more serious than loss of one vote in each
of 300 machines." Given the noise floor of the "residual vote"
(votes that are either not cast by the voter or not recorded
by the voting machine) a shift of one vote per machine may
not be detected (especially not in the way that 300 lost
votes might be). The statistical analysis done by the Yale
group that was published in the October issue of Communications
of the ACM last year (along with numerous other evoting related
articles) demonstrates that a shift of one vote per machine is
precisely enough to cause a change in the electoral college
enough to alter the outcome of the US presidential race. This
is even more true in local races (since those often tend to be
settled on a handful of votes). We need to be concerned about
ANY loss of votes, whether macro or micro per machine.
Rebecca Mercuri.