WASHINGTON: Top vote-getter? We may never truly know

[sled]

Top vote-getter? We may never truly know

http://tinyurl.com/4a8j5

By Andrew Garber
Seattle Times staff reporter

Washington may never know for sure whether more people voted for
Republican Dino Rossi or Democrat Christine Gregoire, even after the
hand recount that starts this week.

From Spokane to Seattle, elections offices are about to begin the
staggering and unprecedented task of hand counting 2.8 million
ballots. But will the hand count in the governor's race really be any
more accurate than the two previous counts?

Even experts can't agree. It's not clear whether humans or machines
are better at vote counting.

But in the end, the question may not matter. No election system is
precise enough to determine who won a race this close, they say. Only
42 votes separate Rossi and Gregoire, out of the millions cast.

(SNIP)

CONTACT INFO: [e-mail]

[librechik]

1. Republican tools begin the discrediting of the recount results

snip

Theresa LePore, the elections supervisor in Palm Beach County, Fla., agrees. Her office had to hand count about a half-million ballots in the 2000 presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore.

"A hand recount — I don't care what system you have — is less accurate than a machine count," she said. "The longer you sit there and look at stuff, and the tension and everything else going on, the more chance of error you've got. It doesn't matter what you're hand counting, whether it's punch cards or optical scan, whether it's the audit logs coming off touch screens."

snip

LePore, who worked 21-hour days during the hand count, described it as "pure hell."

Secretary of State Reed says he doesn't consider either machine or hand counts to be more accurate than the other.

snip

[Eloriel]

8. Egggsackly

And it makes me furious.

This quote especially infuriated me:

Like many experts, he believes hand counts run the risk of human error. "If there's a stack of 500 pieces of paper, one day someone can count them and it will be 499, and another day it will be 501," he said.

If it was 500 dollar bills, you can be DAMN sure they'd get it right -- repeatedly. Somehow the banks don't have that much trouble when they're counting either your money OR theirs. :grr:

[InvisibleBallots]

9. good point, no one has trouble counting money

very, very accurately, to the penny. And we're supposed to think that human beings can't count ballots, and we must have computers with no ballots and proprietary code count them? It's enough to make you, well, angry.

[bemildred]

2. Accurate counting is a "staggering and unprecedented task" ????

Can these guys walk and chew gum at the same time?
The methods one uses to guarantee accurate and honest counts are well known.
If they don't want to use them it's because they don't care about or
don't want accurate counts.

[buddysmellgood]

3. Lends a lot of faith to our financial system, doesn't it?

[BayCityProgressive]

5. Well every country in western Europe

and Canada as well seem fully able to count votes. Perhaps we should let them do it for us if it is so staggering a task.

[neohippie]

4. I only got 10 fingers and 10 toes,

after that we have to count again and it's easy to loose track how many times we already counted, and then if someone says a number while we are in the middle of a count we get confused and have to start all over.

On Edit: Folks these are the same people who can't make change for you unless the cash register tells them how much to give you.

[w4rma]

6. Republicans have no problems counting money. Ballots, on the other hand …

are too hard. Pro-totalitarian SOBs.

[Straight Shooter]

7. Umm, Ms. LePore, haven't you ever heard of "shifts"

"The longer you sit there and look at stuff, and the tension and everything else going on, the more chance of error you've got."

Well, no sh*t, Sherlock! That's why you rotate people, that's why you don't do this for longer than two hours at a time. Look around, dingleberry-brain, you'll find plenty of qualified volunteers: those who will count, and those who will watch the counters.

Do these people ever listen to themselves? And they have the nerve to call us whiners. :eyes: