Reply #37: Slow down.

[Bill Bored]

No one's saying non-auditability is a matter of indifference.

What they are saying is:

1. There are simple methods to audit lever machines that CAN NOT be applied to software-based systems. Even election lawyers know how!

2. The only way to audit the latter effectively is by doing lots of hand counts and using probabilistic methods that few will understand or comply with. What happened in CA CD-4, where the statisticians said there would almost certainly be a full recount? 10% is all they got, as far as I know, and I don't see any torches and pitchforks folks (or rationalists for that matter) in CA trying to find out who really won that election, do you? So what good are the audits if they don't hold the public's interest and the candidates go ahead and concede anyway with 90% of the vote left counted only be computers?

3. Lever machines place lots of upper bounds on the amount of miscounts, not just undervote rates, which are readily detectable if reported properly. For one thing there's no vote switching possible on lever machines. For another, there are fewer combinations of votes that have to be tested. For another, fewer voters per machine are allowed. And finally, the vote counts are recorded on election night, without the use of ANY software. Computers cannot even come close to this level of safety, at least not the kind of off-the-shelf crap that's being peddled by the voting industry today. Would you run an election Windows? Give me a break!

And don't even get me started on Ballot Definition Programming, outsourcing, virus propagation and all the rest!

To suggest that ANY of this is equivalent to the situation with DREs or scanners is JUST PLAIN WRONG and you know it.

4. The other concerns is that no one knows where the ballots go after the election when the audits are to be conducted.

5. And finally, there's a real chance that no one will comply with the type of auditing that will be needed to find out who won the scanner elections, even if there are laws about that. And I bet you know that too.

All that said, of course we have to try anyway, IF we are stupid enough to replace the levers in the first place! But frankly, I have not heard jack shit from those who think we should take that leap, and so far, they have been the ones LEAST involved in trying to make e-vote counting safe. They just want to get there and worry about the details later.