The Hill: Jennings campaign to tout study discounting ballot design theory

[kpete]

Jennings campaign to tout study discounting ballot design theory
By Aaron Blake

A new academic study of voting in Florida’s 13th district congressional race refutes the prevailing opinion of experts that the large undervote in the race in November was likely due to poor ballot design.

Democrat Christine Jennings lost by 369 votes out of 240,000 cast, and has contended that the undervote — more than 18,000 Sarasota County ballots didn’t include a vote in the congressional race — could be attributed to malfunctioning electronic voting machines.

The new study points to an error message that the experts say correlates with the undervotes, as well as to voting patterns that show unusually high undervote rates for Democratic voters. The study’s authors say more information, specifically the secret software used by the voting machines, is required to draw any real conclusions.

The Jennings campaign plans to tout the study, which was researched independently by Stanford University computer science professor David Dill and Cornell University government professor Walter Mebane, as support for its appeal in a Florida court.

more at:
http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/012407/jennings.html

[Wilms]

1. Dang! That story ain't loading now. n/t

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

2. "error message in the machine's event log"

The link worked when I just clicked on it.

Here's an excerpt -

The study’s authors’ main argument focuses on the event log files,
which report the machines’ transactions. They say there is a
“very strong statistical link between a specific error message
in the machine’s event log and a high undervote rate on that machine.”
This, they say, suggests a mechanical reason for the undervote.

[BeFree]

4. Well finally

We have some sort of investigation of the machines going on.

Not that you could call it an audit, although the law calls for such systems to have an audit capacity, but at least we finally have a real investigation of the machine.

I wonder what else they will find?

[Ellipsis]

5. Odd choice of word mechanical.

It's fixed components for the most part. The only thing mechanical is the hard drive, if there is one.

Or perhaps they are talking about the ballot card?

[OnTheOtherHand]

6. I blame the English language ;)

What is the adjective for "associated with (voting) machines," if not "mechanical"? Kind of an interesting semantic problem. "Machine" itself seems to have two distinct implications -- one to do with physical mechanism, one to do with interrelated parts.

I agree that it's an odd word given all its prior associations. It only appears once in the entire paper.

[bleever]

3. It's working now.

K&R!