Reply #43: optical scan is a great step for now

[Cos]

At the local level, city or county elections officials in many places find the concept of getting rid of the machines and hand counting everything somewhat threatening.

I've spoken to some city and town clerks here in Massachusetts about it. From their point of view, they've been using optical scan for years, it's easy, it works, and it's reliable. And, it really is. I've been a poll watcher for a number of elections, and I've also been a precinct captain and field coordinator. I've seen the numbers at both ends: how many people voted, how many people were identified by the campaign as supporters, what the reported vote totals were ... I've even participated in a hand recount (as an observer on behalf of a campaign, watching a counting team ballot by ballot). I agree with them as far as that goes: the optical scan machines used in Massachusetts probably do give highly accurate results. Not quite as accurate as a hand count, but even a hand count has some error, and when we have an election close enough that the difference between the two kinds of error might swing the result, well, we have all the paper ballots and we can hand count them.

And that's exactly the point: With optical scan, we have hand marked paper ballots. That's far superior to any DRE VVPAT.

If you push for hand counting, I fear a majority of local elections officials will oppose you out of gut reaction, and you get nowhere. If you push for optical scan, you're likely to get support from a majority of them. Once you have optical scan, you can go further, engage them on the issue of transparency, organize a local team of volunteers to hand count the ballots, etc. The key is, getting those hand marked paper ballots in place. Without them, you can't accomplish much.