Problem (was: Re: need help with tool requirement)

bscott at ntisys.com bscott at ntisys.com
Wed Apr 21 23:35:01 EDT 2004


On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, at 10:45am, bmcculley at rcn.com wrote:
> This tends to feed the desire (requirement?) for a system that counts
> votes accurately.  Florida 2000 just provided proof that the existing
> systems did not meet requirements.
> 
> Question is, how to meet those requirements?

  Again: The vote was so close as to be within the margin of error for *any*
polling system.  You cannot count votes with 100% accuracy because people do
not cast their votes with 100% accuracy.  In any statistically large
population, there will always be some number of people who do the wrong
thing.  This will lead to the same situation (arbitrary legal games),
regardless of how well-designed the actual polling apparatus is.

  Of course, the above does not mean we should not strive to make sure the
tallies are as accurate as humanly possible.  My point is just that even a
"perfect" electronic voting system would not fix the problem that occurred
in the 2000 US Presidential election.

-- 
Ben Scott <bscott at ntisys.com>
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