<ot>OOH, crying over spill milk is indeed meaningless; OTOH, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I think the pattern of errors can be used to improve the concept of "every vote counts" <G>. Like the Stanford-Benet IQ test, the current process [at least in the technologically backward areas] favors the educated, the literate, the studious [I admit I am none of the above <vbg>!] The question is, for instance, can an illiterate holding down 2 1/2 jobs still get to vote for his/her favorite candidate(s) with minimal error rate! By studying the undervote, overvote, mispunched and penciled in, system designers can make a better use of technologies to prevent such recurrences. Certainly, these system designers can also design focus grps and ergonomic lab tests etc, but the data are already out there, why not use it?
best, Bosco |
