It’s been reported that starting on Monday they will be hand counting ballots in Palm Beach County.
Is there any evidence that this will be more accurate than a computer count? Considering that these are the ballots with small holes punched through small numbers, it seems human error would be a great possibility. With all the pressure on the counters, would they be more or less prone to error than computers? Will the couners have to be certified as independent (I’m sure the Gore people would mistrust Republican counters and the Bush people would mistrust Democratic counters)?
I’m not trying to start a debate, I’m just wondering if a hand count is the most accurate way to find out the real numbers in PBC.
Every election, and method to count votes is subject to error, either mechanical or human, and there’s no question that, if a recount by hand is made, there will be some mistakes. However, a recount by hand will also let them catch some mistakes the machines couldn’t catch.
Do you remember taking a standardized test, or filling out a government form, where you had to shade in bubbles with a number 2 pencil? If so, do you remember the beginning of the instructions, where it said “Please use a number 2 pencil ONLY, fill in the circle completely, don’t mark outside the circle, etc”? If you didn’t shade in the box completely, or used a number 3 pencil, for example, the machine couldn’t read it.
A similar thing is happening in Florida. The Gore campaign is betting that there are enough people who voted for Gore, but, who, for some reason, either because they didn’t press hard enough, or the ballot was off center, or whatever, didn’t get counted by the machines. (The county the Democrats are pinning their hopes on is Broward County. An AP news wire report, which you can read at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20001110/ts/eln_election_rdp.html states that Democrats claim there are 6000 ballots that voted for Gore, but that didn’t get pressed hard enough to be read by the machine.
This is just a WAG, but, it seems to me that if you’re behind, why not ask for a hand recount? You’ll prolly get a number that’s different from the machine count. Maybe it will hurt you, maybe it will help you, but – what have you got to lose?
In any event, assuming that a hand recount will produce a higher number of valid ballots, it would arguably help Gore to have hand recounts in heavily democratic areas. I suppose that Bush should demand hand recounts in heavily republican areas.
As far as “whose hands” are used goes, I’ve heard that both sides get to have people present during the recounts.
This seems reasonable, although it could make for some very tedious re-counting.
I imagine that by the time this is over, we will know who is sloppier - democratic voters or republican
look at it this way - what does Gore have to lose? Dubya would win, even if it gets down to a single vote. If counting by hand costs him votes - no difference, he would have lost anyway. But it just might get him enough.
I don’t think you quite understand what a punch card ballot is. Its a card with pre-scored holes, each contains a “chad.” The little pin has to push out the chad entirely. There are a whole series of arcane rules, one expert cited laws that say things like “if the submitted ballot has an incompletely punched hole, if the chad is still hanging on by 2 corners, put it back in place. If the chad is hanging by only one corner, remove it.” Allegedly, the chad can be firmly reattached with a dab of spit. Its just paper, the fibers will still flow back together.
Anyway, there has been a lengthy discussion of paper punchcard ballots in the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.computers. The most authoritative reports have come from this guy (you might as well read his website if you want the hardcore data) http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/
There’s a page specifically on paper ballots at: http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/paper.html
One particular problem with punch card ballots, the chads are likely to fall out on their own after repeated machine sorting and handling. Some cards will inevitably be spoiled in a recount, votes lost or changed, these punchcards have a ton of problems. There are many good reasons why computer people abandoned punchcards a long time ago.
In today’s NPR story on the Palm Beach recount, they said the mechanical recounts they had done in PB (where they ran the same cards through the same counters as before) were far enough off the original counts to warrant ordering a manual recount of the whole county. The machine counters are not as precise and reliable as we always thought.
My cousin was until recently in charge of elections in a state which shall remain nameless. I discussed with him the question in the OP.
His reply:
My cousin’s state outlawed punch card voting years ago because of the problem of “chads.” which is those little tags of cardboard that hang onto the card when a punched hole doesn’t completely detach.
The chad can cover up a punched hole, which will cause the machine counting the votes to misread the card.
My cousin’s conclusion:
A hand recount will give a more accurate picture, because you can look at the card and see whether it has a bit of cardboard clinging to and obscuring a punched vote.
I note that Bush himself signed into law a Texas statute which gives hand recounts preference over machine recounts because of their greater accuracy.
Yep, Spoke. Today on Brinker it was mentioned that a machine count can be up to 3% inaccurate! In an election this close a hand count would be called for.
It was also mentioned that the 20th amendment is still in effect. So there is no “constitutional crisis.”
