[E-voting] Question on optical scan

[Aengus Lawlor]

On Thursday, January 20, 2005 3:42 PM [GMT],
Timothy Murphy <tim at birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie> wrote:

> On Thursday 20 January 2005 14:35, Aengus Lawlor wrote:
>
>>> My thoughts at the beginning were more or less along the lines you
>>> suggest, as I think were most people's -
>>> "This is a great occasion. This is democracy at work."
>>> But 7 hours later the universal response among those I spoke to was,
>>> "There has to be a better way."
>>
>> Timothy, what was different about that count than every other count
>> in the last 70 years?
>
> It lasted much longer than any other count I've been to,
> probably because there were 3 separate counts
> (2 elections and a referendum).

I'd suggest that the electronic voting isn't the most obvious solution
to the problems caused by having 3 ballots on the same day.

>> "There has to be a better way" is not the reaction of most people
>> attending an election count.
>
> Well, I went to a pub afterwards with quite a few of my party
> colleagues - and this is the party most likely to think along your
> lines - and the view that something had to change was universal.

The count was run the way the Returning Officers wanted it to run -
whether they wanted it to be even worse than usual because we had taken
their toys away from them, I couldn't say, but the thought did cross my
mind.

The delays weren't due to the procedures that have to be followed for
paper counts, they were caused by disorganization. And at least you can
recover from a disorganized paper count - I wouldn't want to bet on a
successful recovery from a disorganized electronic count.

Aengus