What Hand Counting Paper Ballots Looks Like … in Scotland.

[nicknameless]

Which system would you trust?


Counting ballots in Scotland -- out in the open, observed and videotaped:


1. Depute Returning Officer John Bruce speaking to Council colleague in Inverness from the Dingwall Count.



2. 10 o’clock the polls close throughout the Highlands. Counting staff await delivery of the ballot boxes.



3. Ballot boxes arrive from the Constituency by boat and road, the Count begins.



4. The nation’s TV and Press look on as Candidates and Election Agents scrutinise the democratic process.



5. The Count is well under way as the Depute Returning Officer ensures the Count runs efficiently.



6. Police Officers in attendance as the Candidates observe the Count in the latter stages.



7. Returning Officer Arthur McCourt, Chief Executive of the Highland Council, announces the result of the poll.



8. Charles Kennedy, the successful Candidate, delivers his acceptance speech and thanks the Police, Returning Officer, Election Staff and fellow Candidates.





Counting ballots in the United States -- shrouded in secrecy, out of public view, concealed by election officials and corporate demands:


Model 100 Precinct Ballot Counter :



The M100 uses PCMCIA 512K/2M Memory Cards



Model 550 Central Ballot Counter



Optech IIIP Eagle originally from BRC


Which system would you choose?




* This is essentially a rerun of kster’s outstanding OP from a year ago. The original page was taken down, so the UK photos disappeared from that thread.

[lostnotforgotten]

1. And By Comparison - Hacking Democracy By HBO

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8367786376074634512&q

[Cha]

2. Kick for Democracy in

Scotland!~

[kster]

56. kick.nt

[troubleinwinter]

57. Glad you brought this up again. Cuz maybe

you can give me your thoughts on this:

(a helpful DUer provided a link in response to my question about how many workers might be required for HCPB in this country with 50+ ballot issues: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/19... )

Wow. Interesting. The article seems to answer one of my questions. It calls for 4,6 or 8 'counters', plus 4, 6 or 8 'observers, and 10 'watchers'. If we use the average of 6 counters and observers, each polling place will need 22 people for the counting, plus the person videoing and broadcasting it.

We have 200,000 polling places in this country, so we will need 200,000 videographers, as "The videotaping will be broadcast over closed-circuit TV and streamed over the Internet while the counting is happening." Each polling place will need a closed circuit TV system and internet access to run many thousands of counts simultaneously.

So while we have previously needed 2,000,000 poll workers and have been running 500,000 (25%) short, we now need an additional 4,600,000 people for the counts. We had been managing to get around 1,500,000, but we would now need 6,600,000.

Most poll workers are paid, but we still lack the needed pollworkers. Are the count people to be paid or volunteers? If we have been falling short with paid workers, how will we quadruple the number of people? Will it be compulsory to serve? Or do you know that enough workers can be recruited?

[kster]

58. Pay the people, heres what it cost us when we stopped

the people from hand counting their own ballots, remember Florlda 2000.

http://nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

[troubleinwinter]

59. Thank you.

It has taken me five attempts to get any response to the question.

I read that we have been paying poll workers between $85 and $200 per day, but have still been running 25% short of workers, needing 2,000,000 but we've only able to get 1,500,000.

So how do we know that "pay the people" will get us 6,600,000? Should we pay more? Offer childcare? Make it mandatory for citizens to be counters? How much should be paid for us to know that we have 6.6 million people? We must KNOW so that we don't have chaos. Many BOE say that there are too many 'no-shows' on election day as it is.

Let's talk about HOW it can work in this country, if it can at this point in time.

[kster]

60. It would be best to start with honesty, meaning ALL

the people not just us, need to know that there is a problem with how our votes are being counted, and it would be best, that, in the future we hand counted all the votes by hand.

That would have to come from our media and our politicians, but as we have seen in the last 5 years or so years, there has been, for the most part a total BLACKOUT of information about these machines.

"Should we pay more? Offer childcare?" Yes, What ever it takes.

But first we have to tell ALL the people the truth, then we can work from there.

[troubleinwinter]

61. While working together toward the same goal of verifiable elections

Our difference appears to be that your view is to convince people to have all hand count first, and then figure out how to accually do it.

My view is to figure out the logistics of accomplishing accurate hand counts and then present it for support and implementation.

I support the idea of at least moving to all paper ballots and rigorous large audits now.

I remain concerned about the many other causes of voting problems: disenfranchisement in many ways... caging, purging, intimidation, fraudulent mailings and phone calls, ballot design, etc., etc. I become concerned that the fight for handcount tends to overshadow and bury these very important issues.

[kster]

62. Telling the people the truth, is not trying to convince them

Example: a Politician, you pick the Politician, goes ON TV and says to the people, "its been called to our attention that electronic vote counting machines are not reliable, they have been proven unreliable, time and time again, we don't know why the media hasn't picked up on it, but they haven't, what we need to do is put the e-voting machines in storage, and that means we will need millions of people, to Hand Count the Paper Ballots at the precinct level on election day. Here is our Hand Counted Paper Ballot Implementation Strategy 2007.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_070102_evoting_exit_strateg.htm

[troubleinwinter]

63. "Here is our Hand Counted Paper Ballot Implementation Strategy 2007"

What is the "Implementation Strategy" is what I am asking.

[kster]

65. Implemetation

NOUN:

A tool or instrument used in doing work: a gardening implement. See Synonyms at tool.
An article used to outfit or equip.
A means of achieving an end; an instrument or agent.
TRANSITIVE VERB:
im·ple·ment·ed , im·ple·ment·ing , im·ple·ments (-mnt)
To put into practical effect; carry out:

(((((implement the new procedures.)))))

To supply with implements.

ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English, supplementary payment, from Old French emplement, act of filling, from Late Latin implmentum, from Latin implre, to fill up : in-, intensive pref. ; see in- 2 + plre, to fill; see pel- 1 in Indo-European roots

OTHER FORMS:
imple·men·tation (-mn-tshn, -mn-) KEY (Noun), imple·menter or imple·mentor (Noun)

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/implement
--------------------------------------------------------------

STRATEGY

strat·e·gy (strt-j) KEY

NOUN:
pl. strat·e·gies

The science and art of using all the forces of a nation to execute approved plans as effectively as possible during peace or war.
The science and art of military command as applied to the overall planning and conduct of large-scale combat operations.

((((((A plan of action resulting from strategy or intended to accomplish a specific goal)))))

. See Synonyms at plan.
The art or skill of using stratagems in endeavors such as politics and business.

http://education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/strategy


"Imple·men·tation strat·e·gy " for making Hand Counted Paper Ballots a reality and dumping ALL electronic secret vote counting machines.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_rady_ana_070102_evoting_exit_strateg.htm

[troubleinwinter]

66. Interesting.

The OpEd author appears to say that elections can be run and hand counted with fewer workers than we use now. (??!!)

She says "I would suggest one worker for every 100 registered voters."

The 2004 census of registered voters shows 142,000,000. BOEs have needed 2,000,000 poll workers in recent elections (but have run 25% short). The article seems to say that we can not only 'man' polling places, but hand count the votes with 1,420,000 workers, and while workers NOW work 12-14 hours, she says they must only work 8 hour shifts.

Should we say, "Well, we haven't proven it yet, but fuck it, one person says it'll work, so let's just give 'er a go." Or should we be truly discussing the logistics and implementation of the plan?

So far, I have numbers between 1.4 million (less than ordinary pollworkers we need now) and 6.6 million (four times what we have now).

I don't care about word definitions, I have a dictionary. I want to see serious discussion about how this will work. How many people would it take? How will we get these people, when we don't have enough poll workers already?

If you care about the votes, I would think you'd want answers to this. I sure do.

[kster]

67. When you said

"What is the "Implementation Strategy" is what I am asking". I thought maybe you did not know or you didn't feel like looking it up. So I did it for you.

I care about the Counting of votes. You seem to care more about auditing of the vote counting machines, auditing the vote counting machine should be the priority of the vote counting companies, that is if they are trying to sell a trustworthy product, but they didn't seem to be concerned about that, so FUCK THEM, they had their chance its over...........

We will be Hand Counting Our votes out in the open for ALL TO SEE.

In the words of Donald Trump "THEY ARE FIRED".

[troubleinwinter]

68. Well, OK. I tried again.

Tried to have a discussion about how to make HC work. Again, no discussion ensues. How can I get behind something or jump on the bandwagon if I cannot get answers?

"WE will be Hand Counting Our votes" Yeah, I remember what you said... you and your family and friends and neighbors.

Sorry you again passed up the opportunity to explain how it could be implemented. Sorry you passed up the chance to draw people to your cause and gain allies and support.

[kster]

69. Don't be sorry, thats just silly

BUT WE THE PEOPLE WILL BE COUNTING OUR OWN BALLOTS!! THATS FOR SURE!! Why don't we sit back and watch the Politicians remain silent about the vote counting machine scam.

Thats always fun to watch, Hey why don't we beg holt to give us a 2% audit OF THE MACHINES. That will fix the problem :rofl:

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

104. SCOTLAND GAVE UP HAND COUNTED BALLOTS IN 2007

SORRY, BUT THEY GAVE UP THE SYSTEM THAT WORKS IN ORDER TO HAVE A FORM OF
INSTANT RUNOFF.

[kster]

105. IF I SAY IT THIS WAY WILL IT MAKE YOU HAPPY...

What Hand Counting Paper Ballots Looked Like … in Scotland.

[troubleinwinter]

64. I should have thought of that!

So a politician goes on TV and says we have an "Implementation Policy" (even though there isn't one), MILLIONS of people will suddenly turn out?!

Well, hell! GREAT! Let's us just get a politician to say "We have an Implementation Policy for Peace", and 6,600,000 people will be in the streets tomorrow!

[sonias]

72. troubleinwinter, can you provide a better link

The freepress story link you have right now doesn't go to the story about the number of workers. I'm curious about that as well. I think we can all agree that the DREs should be banned eventually, but I can't understand the logistics of HCPB either. Every time I try to ask supporters for details I get the same response about how people from the local neighborhoods are going to turn out. I'd like to believe that, but I don't feel very confident of that lasting. We're a country of slackers basically. Maybe right now this issue is getting a lot of buzz, but 4-6 years from now it's back to complacency. I also worry about how we're not getting all the election workers we need right now to run elections. Even if you agree to pay the people counting ballots you run into problems. Also what about those highly partisan pcts, are we going to trust the results in a pct that's highly partisan one way or the other?

I think the error rates for the optical scan machines are low enough that we can at least move back to those where the voter marked ballot is the ballot of record. You use the machines to do the counts but you have the paper to back that up, for audits for recounts and for any challenge.

I'm with Avi Rubin on this one too, just because the Holt bill doesn't outright ban DREs it's still a good bill to support. No legislation is perfect and this is something substantial in election protection. Something we can get before 2008. If nothing else when the printers added to the DREs do keep jamming or breaking down, the uproar for the need to get rid of the DREs will reach that critical mass. It's not there yet. There are many millions of people who like the damn things.

Sonia

[Greeby]

3. Ummm, it's like that in the whole of the UK

Obviously, Charles Kennedy is the example because he was until last year, the leader of the third major party in Parliament

[nicknameless]

6. I'm jealous.

Elections in the US have become a racket.

I also wish we had a Parliamentary system of government. There is so much corruption and non-representation in our current system.

[Greeby]

8. Parliament in this country, particularly among the two main parties

Has become as supine as Congress. Especially when it comes to the war, or President Tony's attempts to turn us into a police state.
The Lib Dems, the Nationalist parties and Independents have tried to stand against it, but are too few in number.

Give you a good example: last week, the Scottish and Welsh nationalists, backed by the Lib Dems, forced a debate and vote on having a proper inquiry about Iraq. The bill was defeated by a majority of 25. Wanna know how many Labour MPs stood up for basic decency? 12! Out of 352! :grr:

[nicknameless]

11. What a disgrace. I'm very sorry to hear that.

At least with a Parliamentary system, the Labor MPs have some cause to fear losing their jobs.
Too often in the US, we have the choice merely between a weak or bad candidate (D) and a criminal (R).

[Greeby]

18. But you can change that

You can get involved in the primaries and elect a better candidate of the same party. We don't have that. We essentially just vote for parties, most of the time it doesn't matter the name of the candidate because he/she will vote in lockstep with the leadership's positions on the issues.

Yanno, when I see roll call votes in the House, and a group usually featuring Kucinich and the Black/Progressive Caucus, standing up against some fascist or pro-corporate piece of legislation. It makes me envious that you have people in the Democratic Party who will not march in lockstep with enabling Bushler.

[nicknameless]

20. We can *try* to change it.

But between the corporate “news”, Dem powerbrokers, and rigged elections, our ability to make changes is limited. We lost Paul Hackett in Ohio because the Dem leaders wanted Sherrod Brown... who betrayed us by voting for the Military Commissions Act.

We love our real patriots/populists in Congress. It’s a shame that there are so few of them.

[Votergater]

101. Here in the UK in 2007 British votes were counted by ES&S...

and several other electronic voting machine companies all trying to get national contracts from the Blair/Brown government.

Partly due to the work of great American activists and partly due to my HBO documentary 'Hacking Democracy' Diebold is
excluded from involvement British elections. The UK government official in charge of implementing electronic voting here
attended a special screening of "Hacking Democracy" in London and admitted he was shocked by the ease with which our Finnish
hacker, Harri Hursti, rigged the Diebold Optical Scan system (both the scanner and the central tabulator).

But in 2007 ES&S refused to give interviews to journalists in the UK about how they were counting our votes and wouldn't
even answer a question about where they would be counting votes. ES&S now has a UK office and is on the UK government
short-list of e-voting companies.

We have even been testing Internet Voting in real elections, despite the complete unaccountability of this method of voting
and counting.

[BrklynLiberal]

4. As I heard onthe radio this AM...If the country WANTED to solve the voting

problems they would. All this confusion and technical bullshit serves the Repukes very well.
We can put a man ont he moon, and we cannot straighten out the voting process..??!!

Give me a break!

[nicknameless]

5. Exactly.

Tell me again why we can't count the votes like that in the US? :eyes:

It's total bullshit. Designed to fail. Designed to keep criminals in office.

And apparently HAVA was in the planning stages *before* the Florida 2000 election. They were just waiting for an excuse to dump it on us.

... Not unlike the invasion of Iraq being planned long before 9-11.

Florida was the electoral "new Pearl Harbor".

[applegrove]

7. In Canada.. we take the boxes and count them right out in the open...

with a representative of each party looking closely at each ballot and agreeing. Then 1/2 an hour later the vote is called in.

But you Americans have too many congress people and issues on the ballot to do something so simple. In the Parliamentary system you only vote for the person nominated by each party..in each riding. You vote for the one member of Parliament. No provincial elections at the same time. Nothing else. One vote. No voting for Prime Ministers. No electoral colleges. No ballot initiatives.

Seems to me that your elections are 5 times more complicated than ours and I believe Scotland's too.

[aquart]

9. Counting ballots is a civic responsibility. Like jury duty.

Every able-bodied person should take his turn at the task.

[applegrove]

17. Voting too is a civic duty.

[nicknameless]

10. So the count would take longer.

And perhaps we would need to have additional elections to decide other issues and offices.

ANYTHING is better than what we have now, which has removed citizens' choice and self-determination.
We are no longer a democracy because of rampant election fraud.

Elections aren't inexpensive to run, but criminals in office have cost us an inestimable price.

[BruceMcF]

13. Actually, we would not need additional elections to decide ...

... other issues. There is nothing wrong with paper ballots. Whether they are counted by hand or counted by machine with an audit, the point is they used problems with one system as an excuse to put a worse system in place sold by companies that supported Republicans in the first place in order to get the big deal put in place.

Heck, we don't even have the best touch screen technology ... have you every used a Diebold ATM touch screen and have problem with its "registration"? I have used various Palm PDA's, and had to fidget with their "registration" every once in a while, but we are talking about the vote here.

[nicknameless]

14. No machines should be allowed -- for voting or counting.

Ballot definitions of OpScans can easily be set to rig elections.
Audits are BS. Usually a ridiculous 1% - 3%.

All vote counts should be done out in the open, in full view by the public and video cameras.

[Kurovski]

100. Kick. (nt)

[BruceMcF]

12. But, when do you vote for your ...

... District Court of Appeals Judges, and County Commissioner, and, and, ... well my goodness. If we were not voting for the Congress and Senate during those elections, nobody would frackin turn up for them, and the county commissioner race would be decided by who had more relatives in the district.

[applegrove]

30. Judges are appointed by government. Local officials run their own

elections on their own time. Provincial members of Parliament too.

[demodonkey]

40. So how do you run and count your provincial and local elections??

Curious pollworker from Pennsylvania here (me) wants to know!

:-)

[sonias]

73. Actually about 50 times more complicated

Applegrove I agree with you, our ballots and elections in the US are too complicated. I have yet to see a federal election ballot in my city with less than 30 races and or issues. And now my state is standardizing election dates so that all county, school, bond etc issues all have to be done on those standard election dates making the ballots even longer. I actually had one person who supports HCPB tell me that the way to do this was to count the ballots as you went along i.e. open the box periodically during slow periods. And I said WTF? How can that possibly be secure? And don't tell me that it's all on cameras. Who is going to be watching all this democracy 24/7.

The key to a safe and secure election is of course the process. There have to be good secure procedures in place, a good chain of command of the ballot boxes with multiple people watching. Private vendors need to be kicked the hell out of our voting systems, but I'm not totally opposed to machines.

Sonia

[garthranzz]

15. I love Scotland

Mull of Kyntyre (spelling?)
Single Malt Scotch (Laphroaig, OBan, Glenlivet, Glenfiddich, etc.)
The highlands and lowlands
Edinburgh - the Castle!
Robert Burns
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (studied there)
James Boswell
Etc.

[In Truth We Trust]

26. Don't forget Mr. Boycott himself! He was a Scot too I believe. HCPB NOW!

[RC]

16. Hand count the ballots?

But how can you announce the winner 10 minutes after the poles close? :sarcasm:

[kster]

23. Heres how

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=425015 :-)

[kiteinthewind]

77. Precisely. Apparently some people feel speed is more important than a transparent count!

[texpatriot2004]

19. How sad for America and Americans nm

[kster]

21. Its great to see those pics online again

Thank You, nicknameless :thumbsup:

[nicknameless]

22. Thank you for finding the original UK pics.

They're awesome.

:)

[FernBell]

24. kick

[In Truth We Trust]

25. K&R Hand Counted Paper Ballots NOW! DEMOCRACY NOW!!! OR Fascism FOREVER.

Excellent post!!!

[AikidoSoul]

27. Canada's regional elections do the same type of manual counting

In Canada the counters are represented by each party, and each counting group is limited to counting 500 votes. It's also done publicly, with many observers. The counting starts earlier than in Scotland, and the counting is usually accomplished before midnight.

In Canada there are not as many issues on the ballot as here in the U.S. We suggest that we have more elections to solve this problem. One for candidates and maybe one issue. And another for local candidates, judges, and a few more issues. This way it wouldn't take as long. The key would be to make the elections important enough to get people interested enough to vote.

As it stands now there are too many candidates and issues on the ballot which takes too long to count. We ran a mock on this and figured out how long it would take and the only solution is to break up the elections into more than one every two years.:)

[onthebench]

35. It could take months if you are talking a California or Illinois Ballot

Yes, I did also figure this out years ago. Some states have ballots with 30 ballot questions and judges and local officials, etc. Plus we can barely get 40% of people to vote in one of the most important elections ever. How can we get people to volunteer to count votes?

[Kurovski]

28. K&R!

GOTV!

:hi:

[AikidoSoul]

29. Kick this baby! Somebody really does understand what we gotta do!

Nicknameless --- let me call you darling smartbrain!

:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:
:patriot:

K & R!

[kster]

31. kick..nt

[nicknameless]

32. Kick! What real democracy looks like.

I hope we can get it back. Voting machines cannot be improved. They must be discarded and destroyed.

:kick:

[diva77]

33. Yes! Convert them into defibrillators!

Despite the fact that I am elated with the big wins yesterday, there is the lingering reality that the way America is set up under HAVA, the people holding office are more accountable to the vendors and elections officials than they are to the electorate.

[nicknameless]

34. True that.

We're running on corruption overload. There is much work yet to be done to straighten that mess out.


But for now ...
:toast:

[kster]

36. kick-n-it...............nt

[Land Shark]

37. Kicked but too late to recommend, n/t

[Febble]

38. Yeah, I like those pictures too

in fact I think I posted them myself at one time.

But you might like to bear in mind that this is what our ballots look like:



and consider how those good Scots tellers would hand-count yours.


edited for clarity

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

39. there is only one contest on the ballot

take a look at the ballots in UK and Candada.

They only have 1 contest on them, period.

That would be easy.

Maybe we should go to the Prime Minister system.
Heck, Tony Blair is our poodle, but at least he can put
a sentence together.

[troubleinwinter]

41. November 2006 sample ballots

40 items, (races, measures...) six pages, to vote on in Sonoma County, California. 40, not 1.



A precinct in the City of Los Angeles, 53 items, ten pages. 53, not 1.

[troubleinwinter]

42. "Dingwall Count", Scotland

Nice pictures, for sure!

The entire population of Dingwall is 5,500.

They are counting ballots with ONE race.

Los Angles County, CA, had 2,952,283 registered voters as of October 2006. Some 53 issues/races to be voted on, Nov 7, 2006.

One must have a system in place to organize to count 156,470,999 votes, record and tabulate them accurately in only one county.

How does one convince a registrar to implement such a thing? Good luck with that. I would think a push to enforce paper ballots with optiscan and random audits can be implemented. A registrar is going to fight to his/her dying breath against trying to screen, train, track and oversee however many thousands of people in the county to legitimately hand count all votes.

Maybe if you can find just one county elections official to agree that it is a workable idea, it sure would be something we'd like to hear.

[troubleinwinter]

43. In counting the apparent 'vote counters' in the OP photo

it looks like there are roughly 30 or so counters. Population of Dingwall is 5,500. We can generously call registered voters to be 3,000. They are counting one race, and it took roughly 4 hours (looking at the time stamps 22:00-1:55) Each counter apparently counted approximately 100 votes.

With a registered voting population of 2,952,283 in L.A. County X 53 ballot issues= 156,470,999 issues/races to count, we would need appx. 1,500,000 counters in that county.

What County official will care to oversee a million and a half people? To take applications from 30 or so volunteers and train them and pay and train their supervisors is one thing, a million and a half is another.

Suppose we assume that 'our counters' can count ten times as many ballots in twice the time (inexperienced counters can count 5 times as fast as the Scots?), 8 hours (NOT counting training time)... how do you prepare a county elections officer to handle applications, check them, train and oversee 150,000 one-time workers, along with training the supervisors needed?

Can a county produce 150,000 - 1,500,000 volunteers?

[Febble]

44. Our constituencies

are of of about 30,000-50,000 voters.

Dingwall is where the count is held for the constituency of Ross, Skye and Inverness West, not just Dingwall.

There is always a race to complete the count. The race is usually won by Sunderland South

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4518843.stm

Polls close at 10.00pm and in 2005, the result was declared at 10.43.

So it is done fast. I think both the speed and the unit of the count are important. Speed is important because it reduces the time the ballots are not secure, and the size is important, because it is large enough to be witnessed by crowds, bipartisan scrutineers and candidates, but still small enough to be done quickly.

And it can be done quickly because there is generally only one race - it there is more than one, there is more than one ballot, printed on different coloured paper for ease of sorting.

Your precincts are, IMO, too small to guarantee this kind of kind of oversight (TV cameras at each precinct?) and I'm not sure what the next unit would be. But that might be soluble. The real challenge is your ballots.

And to people who say there is no hurry - there is. The faster you count, the more people will be watching. If you take weeks over it, there will be ample opportunity for fraud.

[troubleinwinter]

45. OK.

Interesting. 4 hours for that many votes sure did seem slow! I could only guess by the photos at 30 counters, but don't know how many they really use. Can we get a number on that or do you think the 30+- is about correct?

Still, with 156 million votes(races/issues) to count, rather than 30,000-50,000, how many counters would the County need to have? We cannot only look at them as 'precinct counters', as the County will need to train and oversee them. The precinct workers already work 9-15 hours, so they would be unlikely to be the counters, I'd think.

Let's just call it a round 100 million votes to count, (as we know nowhere near 100% turn out) just to get an idea.

Still trying to figure out how any elections office head would react to doing 100 million hand vote counts vs. 50,000.

It is interesting to try to imagine if this could work with 53 ballot issues. 53 different colored ballots?! 53 different pages for each ballot?!

Lots to think about.

[Febble]

46. BBC article here might be useful:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/vote2001/hi/english/voting_system/newsid_1171000/1171887.stm

It makes some key points that I think need to be considered, including the fact that spoilage goes up dramatically when there is more than one race (even though we vote on different ballots for different races).

Here's another one:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/threecounties/content/articles/2005/05/03/david_monks_election_feature.shtml

I can't yet find any reference to the number of tellers, but thirty sounds about right from watching counts on TV (and yes, there are TV cameras at every count, because every "declaration" is televised).

If I find any more info, I'll post it here.

[Febble]

47. Forgot to say that Scotland is moving towards optical scanning

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=855042006

The reason, ironically being election reform. Single Transferable Vote is being brought in for local elections (a good thing, IMO) but that will make the votes much harder to count by hand.

Also worth bearing in mind that our biggest threat of election fraud comes from postal ballots, and attempted fraud using postal ballots was uncovered at our last general election.

HCPB is not a panacea for election fraud.

[kster]

48. How did they catch the attempted fraud?

[Febble]

49. Red-handed:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/4406575.stm

The worry is of fraud that was not caught.

In 2005, postal voting was widened - until then, you had to have a specific reason, but in 2005 it was available on demand. I think the rules have been tightened up since then, but it is still a potential loophole in what is otherwise a pretty good system. The other loophole is people voting on other people's registrations (it happens). Also, students can be registered to vote in both their home and their university constituency, although they are only allowed to vote in one. There have been reports of people collecting spare voting cards lying around student housing and using them illegally. It would be very easy to do. You don't have to present ID (or even a voting card) when you vote, although you are checked off on a list.

We do worry about election fraud (a bit) in the UK. But the actual counting system isn't where the fraud is most likely to happen.

[Febble]

50. BTW, HCPB were used in Ukraine in 2004:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4038409.stm



It seems that they even use transparent ballot boxes (ours are black metal).

My point simply being that HCPB do not secure you against even massive fraud. It's one of the reason I am so keen to see mandatory random manual audits made US law - whether the initial count is by hand or machine, and why I think that ensuring a secure chain of custody of the ballots is just as important.

[Cookie wookie]

86. Would think that massive fraud with paper/HCPB would be

difficult to engineer successfully because of the logistical demands and the requirement for what I would think would be many accomplices. Certainly well designed and implemented procedures (and good law backing them up) would be necessary to secure the vote from fraud, but I'd be interested to know details of actual instances, if any, involving massive fraud.

[Votergater]

54. Yes, sorry folks, Scotland's going electronic in 2007...

A company called DRS Data Services Limited will be optically scanning their ballots next year...


http://drs.co.uk/corporate/newsitem.asp?id=106

Green light for DRS & ERS to deliver e-Count for 2007 Scottish Elections

Following a successful project to trial and evaluate DRS and ERS electronic counting technology, the Scottish Executive and Scotland Office has confirmed that the technology will be used by local authorities wishing to automate the complex processes for the Scottish Parliament and Local Authority elections, on 3 May 2007. This announcement comes as electronic counting of votes is given the go ahead by Scottish Ministers and the Secretary of State for Scotland....

.... Minister for Finance and Public Service Reform, Tom McCabe said "The use of e-Counting will provide quick, accurate and reliable results in the 2007 elections. The Single Transferable Vote count for the local authority elections is a complex process. e-Counting will be able to handle this count effectively and efficiently. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time to complete the count in comparison to a manual count.”

The Scottish Executive has been testing the e-Counting system along with the Scotland Office and all 32 Returning Officers in Scotland over the past four months. The successful outcome of the tests has resulted in wide spread support to implement e-counting for the combined elections to be held in May 2007.

[kster]

55. Counting on a machine? Confidence starts slipping

this didn't take long.......

Posted on: 18th June 2004
From: jenjenjuloola

the system described sounds perfectly ok, but what about that of the uSA where the electronic ballot system is underfire for its possible bias and the fact that it has not been independantly verified? if we continue down the electronic voting system route will we not end up in a a similar predicament? or is the UK parliament too 'sensible' and well structured for that? answers on a postcard please...

http://www.it-director.com/content.php?articleid=11964&mode=full&hilite=8857#CM8857

[In Truth We Trust]

51. HAND COUNTED paper ballots YES! Sourcecode anywhere-NO!

[kster]

52. Kick.nt

[kster]

53. One more K...........nt

[kster]

70. kick.nt

[kster]

71. kick.nt

[galloglas]

74. Och !! Ain' it looks

Bonny!!

[kiteinthewind]

75. Beautiful sight, indeed! nt

:kick:

[kster]

76. KR.nt

[troubleinwinter]

78. I'm so glad you kicked this so that you have another chance at ANSWERING THIS QUESTION:

(a helpful DUer provided a link in response to my question about how many workers might be required for HCPB in this country with 50+ ballot issues: http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/19 ... )

Wow. Interesting. The article seems to answer one of my questions. It calls for 4,6 or 8 'counters', plus 4, 6 or 8 'observers, and 10 'watchers'. If we use the average of 6 counters and observers, each polling place will need 22 people for the counting, plus the person videoing and broadcasting it.

We have 200,000 polling places in this country, so we will need 200,000 videographers, as "The videotaping will be broadcast over closed-circuit TV and streamed over the Internet while the counting is happening." Each polling place will need a closed circuit TV system and internet access to run many thousands of counts simultaneously.

So while we have previously needed 2,000,000 poll workers and have been running 500,000 (25%) short, we now need an additional 4,600,000 people for the counts. We had been managing to get around 1,500,000, but we would now need 6,600,000.

Most poll workers are paid, but we still lack the needed pollworkers. Are the count people to be paid or volunteers? If we have been falling short with paid workers, how will we quadruple the number of people? Will it be compulsory to serve? Or do you know that enough workers can be recruited?

Poll workers are particularly difficult to recruit in urban, poor and minority areas. Do you have an idea about how to be sure that there are sufficient workers in these areas? To be sure that poor/urban/minority voters will not be disenfranchised AGAIN? This is of great importance, so I look forward to your solution.

I'm glad you brought this thread up again so that you can discuss these issues and the question of one/two races on a ballot vs. 53-55.

I know you have overlooked the question a half a dozen times before, even when posted directly in response to you, but this time you'll offer some serious ideas, right?

[kster]

79. Can you ask me this question in another thread please.nt

[troubleinwinter]

80. I don't see why.

I mentioned these concerns to you (not for the the first time) in fourth post in this thread.

You kicked this thread, presumably because you wanted to discuss the issue? How about addressing the issue then?

Why did you kick it if you don't want to converse about issues herein?

If you care to start a new thread discussing the practical logistics of implementing HCPB across the country, I'm sure I will be most pleased to participate.

[kster]

81. OK, Here ya go, its simple easy and could Be done immediately

HCPB for all federal races in the 2008 elections. This would mean hand counting just 1-3 races (the president and vice president; your U.S. senator if s/he is up for re-election; your U.S. Representative). Yes, we would need two ballots, one for these races and one for all other contests and questions on the ballots. Canada already uses an HCPB system for its federal races. Various states and municipalities already have protocols for HCPB, and one has been presented in this paper. These could easily be adapted from one jurisdiction to another.

http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/specials/article.2006-04-10.1693298872

Rep. Kucinich already has this PARTY STARTED !!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=473867&mesg_id=473867



Next question.

[troubleinwinter]

83. Kucinich's HR6200 died with the last congress.

From the article you linked:

"It is time to make electronic voting machines a NIMBY (not in my back yard and not in anyone else’s back yard either) issue. To begin a movement for HCPB, ordinary citizens, registered voters, must begin organizing door-to-door with their neighbors to petition their local election officers and demand HCPB in their city or town. Although organizing could also proceed on a state level, going municipality by municipality is a good way to start, depending on your state’s laws."

This seems a good idea.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

84. Scotland quit hand counting ballots this May

When jurisdictions make voting more complicated, they encourage computerized tabulation.

Scotland switched to optical scan voting this year :(

This followed the decision to use a form of ranked choice voting this year, and also combine two contests on their ballot. They decided that due to the new complexity of the ballot and ballot counting (Single Transferable Vote requires an algorithm) that they needed computerized vote counting. It was a disaster.

'Serious technical failures' at polls

Published: May 5 2007 03:00

Officials yesterday acknowledged "serious technical failures" in the counting of votes for the Scottish elections as they announced a formal inquiry amid fears that as many as
100,000 ballot papers had been unwittingly spoilt by bemused voters.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/15f844a0-faa8-11db-8bd0-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=34c8a8a6-2f7b-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8,_i_rssPage=34c8a8a6-2f7b-11da-8b51-00000e2511c8.html


The biggest poll debacle in the history of British democracy sees up to one in ten votes thrown out

"SCOTLAND'S status as a modern democracy was dealt a grievous blow yesterday by a scandal in which up to one in ten votes in the Holyrood election were thrown in the bin uncounted.

In a development that could bring into question the legitimacy of the Scottish Parliament poll, as many as 100,000 ballot papers were spoiled. That averages out as one in 20 votes but in some seats a tenth of the papers were spoiled...."
http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=698352007


Scotland rejected ballots now total 187,578 - BBC says worse than Fl
Wednesday, 16 May 2007,

Figures show that about 45,700 local government votes were rejected compared to 140,000 in the Holyrood poll.

The figures boost critics' claims that the parliament ballot paper confused voters.

They say having both the constituency and list MSP votes on the same sheet led to the rise in spoilt ballots.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6663929.stm

I don't think anyone here opposes hand counting the ballots.

In places like Wisconsin, or in small townships in New Hampshire, they are still hand counting the ballots. NH had only 12 contests on the ballot on Nov 2004.
Good luck convincing politicians and supporters nationwide to reduce ballot size.

Voting machines were implemented to address complexity, but also because it was thought they would decrease fraud associated with HCPB.

If you want HCPB, try working for it at a local level and see how it goes, and if successful maybe neighboring jurisdictions will be convinced.

[kster]

82. KRnt

[kster]

85. Kick For Kucinich..........nt

[kster]

87. KICK

[Kurovski]

88. Where IS nicknameless?

It's been a while.

[kster]

89. I'm sure Nicknameless will show up eventually.nt

[kster]

90. RIP Nicknameless

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1555610

[EFerrari]

91. Kick for my friend Nancy.

[kster]

92. Our Friend was a CLASS ACT, May she (Nicknameless) Rest In Peace

[althecat]

93. goodbye nicknameless

[Ellipsis]

94. RIP

sigh.

[Kurovski]

95. I can imagine how loved Nancy is by those who knew her outside of DU.

I've just finished a sob-session here, and I was just a DU friend. But she touched my life to such a degree that I feel the loss more deeply than I would have imagined.

Condolences go to her closest friends. How very fortunate you were in life to know such a beautiful soul.

I thought it would be appropriate to post a couple of her comments from our correspondence to this thread that she herself started.

"...IMO, people's willingness to accept voting machines rather than fight to get rid of them has been a democracy death knell."

"DU really runs the gamut, doesn't it? Some threads are hilarious. And some are maddening."

She particularly loved the hilarious exchanges. Not everyone does, and that's just one more reason I came to love that deeply caring woman.

Rest in peace dear Nancy. You inspired love and gave love...the best and greatest of all that we can ever do in this life.

ER is that much less for your having gone. I love you.

[kster]

96. KICK.NT

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

97. Scotland rejected ballots now total 187,578...worse than Florida

KSTER, you are aware that Scotland doesn't hand count their ballots any more, right?

They abandoned that when they adopted the "single transferrable vote", a form of Instant Runoff Voting. Their first STV election using new optical scanners from "DRS" resulted in these headlines in May 2007:

Scotland rejected ballots now total 187,578 - BBC says worse than Florida
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/6663929.stm

It would be oh so nice if Scotland had kept their HCPB.

That is yet another reason to steer clear of IRV.

When Pierce County Washington adopted IRV, their election director decided they would have to go
to all Vote By Mail, since IRV would make elections too complicated.

[kster]

98. Kick.nt

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

99. Scottland uses Optical scan

They gave up hand counted paper ballots for IRV.

[kster]

102. KICK ....NT

[kster]

103. kick.nt

[kster]

106. kick.nt

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

107. SCOTLAND QUIT HAND COUNTING MAY 2007

this thread is just a memorial to what hand counting USED to look like in Scotland.

You can thank the Instant runoff advocacy groups for Scotland giving up hand counting
of the ballots.

Scotland used voting machines in their May 2007 election.