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[OM] Re: voting [was: little rant on e-mail politeness]

Subject: [OM] Re: voting [was: little rant on e-mail politeness]
From: Andrew Fildes <afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 27 Aug 2007 14:31:33 +1000
Exactly.
Each stack is counted in the booth and distributed into first  
preferences and 'unsure - refer to supervisor.' Oh, and 'clearly  
informal' - a nice way of saying that the voter wrote an insult on  
the paper instead of voting. If the voter's voting intent is clear,  
it's counted, insult or not. Then each distributed set is checked.  
Because we have a preferential system where you must assign a rank to  
every candidate (number every box) there may be several recounts  
depending on the redistribution of preferences and in a close call,  
the whole thing is redone centrally in the following week, along with  
postal and absentee votes, before the poll is declared.
The whole process is overseen by scrutineers - each candidate is  
allowed to appoint one for each booth - but they don't get anywhere  
near the bits of paper. They are there to watch the process and are  
given access to raw data.
Why would anyone attend just to write an obscenity on the ballot.  
Because while voting isn't compulsory (as most assume) attendance at  
a booth is and you can be fined for not showing up to get your name  
ticked off - crossed out in a bound list, with a pen, by hand.
It's busy and intense but only happens every so often, everyone knows  
what they are doing and while expensive, it is  lot cheaper than a  
heap of idle machinery of questionable veracity.
Andrew Fildes
afildes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



On 27/08/2007, at 7:59 AM, Chuck Norcutt wrote:

> The only way you can trust a manual count is to have multiple people
> doing it in parallel and they all have to agree.  And if you feel
> someone or something is diddling with the numbers at any level you  
> need
> to have more than one count.



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