Some Tennessee voters say they touched one candidate’s name on a voting machine but saw a different name selected. State election officials say unintended touches can cause that to happen.
I’m amazed at the American obsession with voting machines. A properly organised hand count has an amazingly low error rate. I distinctly remember an article about 20 years ago stating, that even the then newest scanning vote counting machines had an error rate higher than hand counting.
Yes “a human” makes mistakes. But multiple humans paying attention at the same time and also keeping each other honest do a tremendously good job.
I’m reasonably sure that the “hanging chads” was only a problem for counting votes for candidates from one of the two parties.
I’ve heard a legend that in a Scottish parliament election, which claims that a ballot is required only to show “clear preference” that a person drew dicks on all but one candidate, over which was written “not a dick”. The vote was counted as it showed clear preference.
Here in Sweden you take a ballot from the party you want to vote for, you mark any specific representative if you want, you put the ballot in an envelope, seal it, walk to the election official desk and cast your vote:
Ok, so the point of the machine is to generate a ballot?
Seems like it would be easier to just skip the machine…
Nah, you do both. A fast electronic count then a slow paper count. That way you get the advantages of both systems.
Then you get back to the old way of punching holes in a paper ballot and well… Have you ever heard of a “hanging chad”? That shit has issues too.
I’m amazed at the American obsession with voting machines. A properly organised hand count has an amazingly low error rate. I distinctly remember an article about 20 years ago stating, that even the then newest scanning vote counting machines had an error rate higher than hand counting.
Yes “a human” makes mistakes. But multiple humans paying attention at the same time and also keeping each other honest do a tremendously good job.
that is why conservative depend on the mahcines, they are known to have an error rate that somehow only benefits republicans.
I’m reasonably sure that the “hanging chads” was only a problem for counting votes for candidates from one of the two parties.
I’ve heard a legend that in a Scottish parliament election, which claims that a ballot is required only to show “clear preference” that a person drew dicks on all but one candidate, over which was written “not a dick”. The vote was counted as it showed clear preference.
The point is, people determined on a particular outcome will find novel ways of ensuring that outcome.
Exactly.
Also the tribalism is so strong that the ends (our team winning) justifies the means.
Yes!
There are other types of paper ballots.
Here in Sweden you take a ballot from the party you want to vote for, you mark any specific representative if you want, you put the ballot in an envelope, seal it, walk to the election official desk and cast your vote: