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Post by lancastrian on Aug 14, 2020 22:02:47 GMT
No, and besides, we can always count using a machine if necessary. What sort of machine can count ballot papers? And then identify their validity and intention? Whatever they use in Scotland?
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 15, 2020 9:26:45 GMT
I think it's basically just an optical scanner. Ones where intention isn't clear still need to be adjudicated by the returning officer and agents, but you don't need the same numbers of counting agents.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 15, 2020 9:29:56 GMT
By programming them correctly. Even if they use open source software where I can verify that it is programmed correctly, how do I as a candidate or agent know that the counting machines are using the software they are supposed to be using? You don't program counting machines, you're getting confused with electronic voting. Counting machines just...... count. You don't program them. You don't program banknote counters, they just count. You don't program coin counters, they just count. You don't program a set of weighing scales, it just weighs. You don't program a tape measure, it just measures.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 15, 2020 9:35:02 GMT
No, and besides, we can always count using a machine if necessary. What sort of machine can count ballot papers? You use human beans for that bit.
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Post by greenchristian on Aug 15, 2020 10:23:36 GMT
Even if they use open source software where I can verify that it is programmed correctly, how do I as a candidate or agent know that the counting machines are using the software they are supposed to be using? You don't program counting machines, you're getting confused with electronic voting. Counting machines just...... count. You don't program them. You don't program banknote counters, they just count. You don't program coin counters, they just count. You don't program a set of weighing scales, it just weighs. You don't program a tape measure, it just measures. So we're sorting ballots by hand and then weighing the different piles by using analogue scales? That's an almost identical process to counting manually and doesn't reduce the number of staff anywhere near enough to solve the issues Covid-19 raises for election counts.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 15, 2020 10:59:23 GMT
You don't program counting machines, you're getting confused with electronic voting. Counting machines just...... count. You don't program them. You don't program banknote counters, they just count. You don't program coin counters, they just count. You don't program a set of weighing scales, it just weighs. You don't program a tape measure, it just measures. So we're sorting ballots by hand and then weighing the different piles by using analogue scales? That's an almost identical process to counting manually and doesn't reduce the number of staff anywhere near enough to solve the issues Covid-19 raises for election counts. Using the scanning and counting machines used for Scottish elections would solve the problem, however. And as the voting itself is carried out in the same fashion, the count can be verified by hand if required.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 15, 2020 14:24:56 GMT
You don't program counting machines, you're getting confused with electronic voting. Counting machines just...... count. You don't program them. You don't program banknote counters, they just count. You don't program coin counters, they just count. You don't program a set of weighing scales, it just weighs. You don't program a tape measure, it just measures. So we're sorting ballots by hand and then weighing the different piles by using analogue scales? That's an almost identical process to counting manually and doesn't reduce the number of staff anywhere near enough to solve the issues Covid-19 raises for election counts. Any mechanisation of the voting process should avoid the vote itself. You can mechanise the existing sorting process, and mechanise the existing counting process. You can't practically mechanise the unfolding process. A practical process would be: Verification* Sealed ballot box brought to count. Officer notes serial number and number of ballots issued, declares to observers. * Ballot box unsealed, emptied onto table. * Staff unfold and flatten ballot papers. New process here: * Staff hand bundles to supervising officer who feeds them through the sheet counter (instead of staff counting to 50 and putting a clip around them) and gets a total ballot count. Return to old process here: * If the total number of ballots removed from the box does not match the total issued, humans recount the ballots. Sorting
New process here: * The ballots are fed through a sorting machine which spits out a pile of "Candiate A", "Candiate B" etc.... "Uncertain". Doesn't need to be a one-pass machine, it could be "Feed through set to sort for A vs Others, feed Others through set to sort to B vs Others, repeat until all done". * You now have n+1 bundles of ballots, as per the existing process. Candidate A, B, C...., uncertain. * Humans do a bundle flick to confirm each Candidate's bundle doesn't have wrong ballots in. * The 'Uncertain' is sorted by humans into each candidate plus a remaining Uncertain bundle. Counting* Each Candidate's bundle is fed through the counting machine, resulting in a total for each candidate. Return to old process: * The Uncertain ballots are adjudicated on, and and valid ballots added to the pre-counted totals. * If the winning margin is close, an adjudication is made on having a recount, which is done entirely by human. Add extra step here: * The officer declares the candidate box count for that box. This would only work where there is a single vacancy. Multiple vacancies needs a more complex (not complicated) sort process, one that can spit out piles of A, B, C, etc, A+B, A+C, B+C, etc. A+B+C, etc. At all points everything is humanly observable, and humanly reverifyable. And no programming needed, no computers needed, no software needed, all mechanical, even if the mechanics are electrically powered.
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Post by greenchristian on Aug 15, 2020 14:28:54 GMT
So we're sorting ballots by hand and then weighing the different piles by using analogue scales? That's an almost identical process to counting manually and doesn't reduce the number of staff anywhere near enough to solve the issues Covid-19 raises for election counts. Any mechanisation of the voting process should avoid the vote itself. You can mechanise the existing sorting process, and mechanise the existing counting process. You can't practically mechanise the unfolding process. A practical process would be: Verification* Sealed ballot box brought to count. Officer notes serial number and number of ballots issued, declares to observers. * Ballot box unsealed, emptied onto table. * Staff unfold and flatten ballot papers. New process here: * Staff hand bundles to supervising officer who feeds them through the sheet counter (instead of staff counting to 50 and putting a clip around them) and gets a total ballot count. Return to old process here: * If the total number of ballots removed from the box does not match the total issued, humans recount the ballots. Sorting
New process here: * The ballots are fed through a sorting machine which spits out a pile of "Candiate A", "Candiate B" etc.... "Uncertain". Doesn't need to be a one-pass machine, it could be "Feed through set to sort for A vs Others, feed Others through set to sort to B vs Others, repeat until all done". * You now have n+1 bundles of ballots, as per the existing process. Candidate A, B, C...., uncertain. * Humans do a bundle flick to confirm each Candidate's bundle doesn't have wrong ballots in. * The 'Uncertain' is sorted by humans into each candidate plus a remaining Uncertain bundle. Counting* Each Candidate's bundle is fed through the counting machine, resulting in a total for each candidate. Return to old process: * The Uncertain ballots are adjudicated on, and and valid ballots added to the pre-counted totals. * If the winning margin is close, an adjudication is made on having a recount, which is done entirely by human. Add extra step here: * The officer declares the candidate box count for that box. This would only work where there is a single vacancy. Multiple vacancies needs a more complex (not complicated) sort process, one that can spit out piles of A, B, C, etc, A+B, A+C, B+C, etc. A+B+C, etc. At all points everything is humanly observable, and humanly reverifyable. And no programming needed, no computers needed, no software needed, all mechanical, even if the mechanics are electrically powered. And how does this reduce the number of people at the count enough to make social distancing practical?
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,047
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Post by peterl on Aug 15, 2020 14:31:44 GMT
If done in this way, it would be tolerable and preferable to no elections at all. I am somewhat suspicious of electronic counting following the disaster in Scotland in 2007, but I think machines deciding on spoilt ballots with no human input is probably the greatest concern. If everything is double checked by people and uncertain ballots adjudicated by people, the dangers are much reduced. A less radical halfway house would be to use counting machines similar to what they use in banks to count notes to count up ballots for the verification, saving a lot of time, but still count the votes by hand.
Edit: One concern that remains of electronic counting is that, in the event of a legal challenge, it would be nessecary to have some sort of record of the machine's operations.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 15, 2020 14:50:47 GMT
Any mechanisation of the voting process should avoid the vote itself. You can mechanise the existing sorting process, and mechanise the existing counting process. You can't practically mechanise the unfolding process. A practical process would be: (snip) And how does this reduce the number of people at the count enough to make social distancing practical? It speeds it up, so any one box can be counted in less time, so the same number of staff can do more boxes in the same time, or fewer staff can do the same boxes in the same time.
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J.G.Harston
Lib Dem
Leave-voting Brexit-supporting Liberal Democrat
Posts: 13,612
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Post by J.G.Harston on Aug 15, 2020 14:51:47 GMT
If done in this way, it would be tolerable and preferable to no elections at all. I am somewhat suspicious of electronic counting following the disaster in Scotland in 2007, but I think machines deciding on spoilt ballots with no human input is probably the greatest concern. If everything is double checked by people and uncertain ballots adjudicated by people, the dangers are much reduced. A less radical halfway house would be to use counting machines similar to what they use in banks to count notes to count up ballots for the verification, saving a lot of time, but still count the votes by hand. Edit: One concern that remains of electronic counting is that, in the event of a legal challenge, it would be nessecary to have some sort of record of the machine's operations. As I keep saying DON'T USE ELECTRONIC COUNTING.
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,047
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Post by peterl on Aug 15, 2020 14:54:16 GMT
I'm not really sure how you get piles of votes for each candidate without either manually counting them or using electronic counting.
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Aug 15, 2020 15:01:57 GMT
Are we in a rush for results? Surely ballots can be held in a secure way. Even if only 1 person counts we'd get the result with only a small delay with appropriate level of tallying scuitiny and safety.
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Aug 15, 2020 15:15:42 GMT
If done in this way, it would be tolerable and preferable to no elections at all. I am somewhat suspicious of electronic counting following the disaster in Scotland in 2007, but I think machines deciding on spoilt ballots with no human input is probably the greatest concern. If everything is double checked by people and uncertain ballots adjudicated by people, the dangers are much reduced. A less radical halfway house would be to use counting machines similar to what they use in banks to count notes to count up ballots for the verification, saving a lot of time, but still count the votes by hand. Edit: One concern that remains of electronic counting is that, in the event of a legal challenge, it would be nessecary to have some sort of record of the machine's operations. 2007 was a problem, but I believe that was primarily about the local election coinciding with the Holyrood elections. 2012 and 2017 both went smoothly.
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Post by Wisconsin on Aug 15, 2020 15:31:51 GMT
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Post by greenhert on Aug 15, 2020 17:13:42 GMT
The most radical ward boundary changes there are around North Hykeham. Sleaford's wards mostly remain intact.
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Post by gwynthegriff on Aug 15, 2020 18:35:26 GMT
We used optical scanning in Crewe & Nantwich as long ago as 1999. It was meant to speed up the count.
The count took as many staff, and probably took longer than a conventional.
And placing the scanning device between party observers and the ballot led to (some of) them leaning in very close in order to scrutinise.
I've said this before but I really don't think the count is the biggest problem in resuming by-elections. The nomination process, leaflet delivery, canvassing and GOTV operations are far more problematic.
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Post by timrollpickering on Aug 15, 2020 19:43:51 GMT
The London Mayor & Assembly elections use electronic counting but every time it takes far longer than predicted and we get the Mayor and list confirmed in the small hours of Saturday. There are large numbers of counting agents not least because a third of the whole capital is counted at each site.
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peterl
Green
Monarchic Technocratic Localist
Posts: 8,047
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Post by peterl on Aug 15, 2020 20:32:51 GMT
I've said this before but I really don't think the count is the biggest problem in resuming by-elections. The nomination process, leaflet delivery, canvassing and GOTV operations are far more problematic. Can't see how leaflet delivery is really a problem. There is no contact involved. Canvassing and GOTV are not really essential bearing in mind we are talking about council by elections here. The nominations process may be a little challenging. Having said that, 10 people managed to call a town council by election in Portland this week so its not insurmountable.
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Post by Daft H'a'porth A'peth A'pith on Aug 15, 2020 20:35:03 GMT
I've said this before but I really don't think the count is the biggest problem in resuming by-elections. The nomination process, leaflet delivery, canvassing and GOTV operations are far more problematic. Can't see how leaflet delivery is really a problem. There is no contact involved. Canvassing and GOTV are not really essential bearing in mind we are talking about council by elections here. The nominations process may be a little challenging. Having said that, 10 people managed to call a town council by election in Portland this week so its not insurmountable.
Because people seem to be looking for problems rather than solutions.
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