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Politics : Al Gore vs George Bush: the moderate's perspective
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To: pezz who wrote (6026)11/14/2000 1:54:38 PM
From: david james  Read Replies (2) of 10042
 
I find it interesting that people are now claiming that machines can do better than people on visual inspection of this sort. Where do they get the evidence for that claim?

This is a simple scientific question. And working in this field, I have never heard claims that machines are more accurate on this sort of task - just faster. If you think there is a bias in the handcount, then make sure you have equal numbers of republicans and democrats doing the counting.

If you think the machine is more accurate then do the test. Ask the representative population to use a punch card to make a predetermined choice. Then see whether people or the machines do better at judging from the card what their choice was. I have no doubt that human observers would be significantly better.

Can machines be biased? Absolutely. There are several ways to make them biased. The easiest way is to make the machines more selective in democratic areas or republican areas. It appears that punch card systems are more selective than other methods. And therefore, if they are used more often in Democratic areas then they are biased in favor of the Republicans.

It is also likely that both women and the elderly punch the holes less forcefully, than younger men, so again the machine that requires only a forceful vote to be counted is biased in favor of the young male vote.
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