Re: Hand Recounts of votes recorded on DREs
At 11:14 PM -0800 12/6/04, David Aragon wrote:
>Barbara Simons wrote:
>
>> A "hand recount" of paperless DRE votes should come up with
>> the same tally that the DRE originally produced, unless the
>> DREs are really really broken.
>
>Clearly it can't detect errors in the recording of votes to
>produce the DRE output. But it can detect errors in the
>tallying of those outputs downstream of the DRE's -- which is
>certainly an area of concern and potential source of errors.
It can also detect errors in the tallying of votes WITHIN the DREs.
>So it's not pointless. But neither is it the end-to-end
>audit function that "hand recount", with its connotations
>of painstaking meticulousness, has formerly meant.
Certainly it is better to have an AVVPAT for each DRE. But let hand
recounts of DREs go forward with the painstaking auditing process if
there's a chance it's not pointless. We don't want election
officials deliberately avoiding a great deal of effort by choosing
DREs without AVVPATs. Be careful what you wish for, you just might
get it.
Best regards,
Arthur
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Arthur M. Keller, Visiting Associate Professor, Computer Science Dept.
University of California, Baskin School of Engineering, Room 153B,
1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95066-1077
tel +1(831)459-1485, fax +1(831)459-4829, www.soe.ucsc.edu/~ark