The study that I did, Counting all the Votes (see "http://ucdata.berkeley.edu"
and click on "Counting all the Votes"), shows that paper ballots do very well
BUT there is no county in America larger than 60,000 people that uses paper
ballots and the average size of the counties using paper ballots is 6100
people. The report argues (page 32) that "the data tell us virtually nothing
about what would happen if they [paper ballots] were used in larger counties."
In fact, the data show that those counties that use paper ballots tend to be
rural with small precincts that have roughly half the number of voters per
precinct as in urban and suburban areas. This suggests that paper ballots have
found a niche in small precincts where the demands on poll workers (because of
the small number of voters) is not great.
Trying to implement paper ballots in a large urban county would be, I suspect, a
real problem. There is, after all, a reason why paper ballots are only found in
small counties.
Henry Brady
Professor of Political Science and Public Policy
University of California, Berkeley
"Huennekens, Bill" wrote:
Terms must be carefully defined. Yes the Caltech/MIT study found that paper
ballots had the lowest residual vote rate, but they are talking about paper
ballots that are hand tabulated. It is administratively inconceivable that
we could expect large jurisdictions like King County, WA, Los Angeles
County, CA or Cook County IL to hand count paper ballots. Especially if you
want anything close to timely results.
I would argue that in large jurisdictions the actual tally would not be
accurate either. If an individual counts a ream of paper 3 time I bet you
will get three numbers, a machine will get it correct every time.
Bill Huennekens
Policy Analyst
Office of the Secretary of State
Washington State
Elections Division
-----Original Message-----
From: Fabrice Lehoucq [mailto:fabrice.lehoucq@cide.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 10:53 AM
To: 'Larry Levine'; 'David Schultz'; T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au;
smulroy@memphis.edu
Cc: election-law@majordomo.lls.edu
Subject: RE: paper ballots
Other arguments in favor of paper ballots:
1. The MIT-Caltech study showed that paper ballots had the lowest error rate
in 2000, if memory serves me.
2. Most dictators lose elections with paper ballots. It was pretty easy to
tell that Milosevic stole the election in Serbia with paper ballots. The
Mexican PRI lost with paper ballots.
Sure, some of this is experience -- e.g., people are familiar with this
technology, so they make fewer mistakes. So, arguably, with enough training
and voter education, an electronic system might work. Two countries now use
semi-electronic and computer systems: Costa Rica and Brazil. At least for
CR, I know that citizens are automatically registered and the Supreme
Tribunal of Elections spends a time and money on educating citizens
(conditions completely absent in the US).
3. A lot of the preference for computer systems stems from aggressive
companies. Yet, computer systems like so many electronic databases
emphasize speed and accesibility. They don't emphasize information
retrieval, which is key for transparency. In Bolivia last year, I asked
local officials interested in a non paper system how they could guarantee
transparency, and they had few answers.
Fabrice Lehoucq
Division of Political Studies
Centro de Investigaci—n y Docencia Econ—mica (CIDE)
Carret. Mexico-Toluca 3655
Lomas de Santa Fˇ, Mexico City, DF, CP 01210
Tel. 52/5727-9800, ext. 2215 (voice) & -9871 or 9873 (fax)
E-mail: Fabrice.Lehoucq@cide.edu