I have an idea about recounting ballots without hand counting

[New Earth]

If for some reason Ohio will not allow hand counting of the ballots (the ones that use the optical scan) - couldn't Cobb/Badnarik/Ohio Dems/Kerry lawyers, whoever - request they use different machines? if the machines were 'fixed' to count ballots a certain way in a certain county or precinct, wouldn't using DIFFERENT machines - or switching them up from county to the other - make the outcome different? I'm sure the numbers would not end up the same.

[rucky]

1. that just makes way too much sense.

so I'm sure there's an army of Americans willing to take great measures to stop something like that.

[Straight Shooter]

2. Good point.

But they need to insist on hand-counting, if only for the reason that you don't want to set a precedent for future election dispute recounts.

All machines are suspect at this point.

[Stand and Fight]

3. Yes, Machines are Unreliable

It would take too long to get and then distribute the machines, and we already know that machines can be hacked in little or no time. It is imperative that all recounts are conducted by hand. Nothing less will serve the greater good of our august and belovéd democracy.

[noamnety]

4. No.

The same people making the machines are often the ones printing the forms as well, and all it takes is a little misalignment to make a machine (any machine) read the form as spoiled.

[harmonyguy]

5. Good theory, but in practise.....

...the machine needs to be programmed to know that a filled in bubble in row 3 column 1 on the front of the ballot counts for 'bush for president' while a filled in bubble in row 2 column 2 on the back of the ballot counts for 'bltzflk for mayor of Smallsville' .

As a result each county, and in many cases each precinct, has their scanners programmed differently. Even though they're all initially programmed from one location, a ballot from one county almost certainly wouldn't read the same in a other county, and, if I'm not mistaken, a ballot from one precinct likely wouldn't read the same in another precinct's scanner.

The one exception, again in theory, is that the ballots from all precincts in a given county, 'should' be able to be read by a scanner set up as a central count scanner. The downside of the central count is that the voter looses the opportunity to correct their vote in the case of an error.

As far as I'm concerned, the ONLY way in which to do a legitimate recount of an optical ballot is by hand.

If any jurisdiction tries to outlaw a hand recount, they're either incredibly lazy, or trying to hide something. There is no valid excuse for NOT ensuring that all the votes are counted properly.

Not that I normally like quoting this guy, but the words that comes to mind are ....
"I think the definition of truth is the willingness of the regime to allow for verification"

HG