Even the manufacturers, plumping their machines in NY TIMES, say hand counts are more accurate:
"If you have 400,000 cards and not a single error, somebody
has faked the results," said Robert Swartz, president of
Cardamation, which has been making punch-card readers for
25 years.
"If you've got 400,000 and 1,000 errors, that would be more
likely," said Mr. Swartz, who has seen rates of 1 percent and
higher.
The errors usually consist of choices that are not read correctly.
John Hanna, sales manager for Peripheral Dynamics Inc. of
Plymouth Meeting, Pa., another manufacturer of card readers,
whose accuracy he estimated at 99.9 percent, said, "Like any
electromechanical device, it can have a failure."
Ultimately, industry officials said, the most precise way to count
ballots is by hand.
"The important thing here is that there may be no way to get a
100 percent accurate count by a machine," said Mr. Swartz,
whose card readers are approved by the Federal Election
Commission for use in punch-card voting systems. "It is totally
reasonable that the most accurate way to do it is a carefully run
recount."
Officials with Election Systems and Software Inc., of Omaha,
which sells voting systems around the country, contend that the
accuracy of their punch-card systems can be as high as 99.99
percent — "if the cards are quality and the chad is cleaned,"
said Todd Urosevich, vice president of customer service.
"There isn't a voting technology you'd be able to say, Gee, this
is perfect," Mr. Urosevich said. And in close races, manual
recounts are the way the machine's imperfections are resolved.
"A manual recount can be extremely accurate," he said.
nytimes.com |
