Rather than highlighting a problem, which I what I think you were trying to do, what you've done is highlight a possible future solution.
Here's why.
Every single time you run those ballots through the punch-card tabulating system you're gonna come out with a different count. (see court testimony) What normally happens is the votes increase, as undervotes eventually become votes as the chads continue to fall off through the passing of the machines.
Solution:
Run the ballots through the machine five times, then separate out the remaining undervotes. This will produce fewer undervotes which the canvassing board itself can deem where there are actual votes the machine did not pick up. So once you've determined the actual votes from the undervotes, add that to the machine's fifth tally.
Dimples would count. If an undecided voter was clumsy and accidentially marked a ballot, that's voter fault--not the candidate's fault. If there is a mark, a dimple or whatever--outside of a finger scratch--that vote should count for the candidate, much like an X can count as a signature of a signee.
Doing this above would produce better results for punch-card voting machines. Of course, this is probably moot now as most likely those machines will be trashed. Unless, of course, our politicians have been winning over and over and over by using such machinery--lol--in which case they'll remain.
If you're a republican running statewide, it's good to know that five percent of the poorer, more Democratic precincts are gonna have their votes undercounted and thereby not register as votes--good for the Republican, huh? After witnessing GOP tactics in this election, they'll likely keep using the machines. |
