[LINK] Re: blind faith in electronic voting

[Craig Sanders]

On Wed, Nov 15, 2006 at 12:08:57PM +1100, Howard Lowndes wrote:
> >(*) and even that is only for those electorates with a very close
> >match, where 2nd and 3rd and Nth preferences really make a difference.
> >the results in most electorates are known within a few hours of the
> >close of voting, even with the so-called inefficient manual counting.
> 
> Actually manual counting is very efficient and does not add greatly to 
> the cost of running an election.  All poll clerks are paid on a flat 

yeah, i know.  that's why i said "so-called".

> rate for the day irrespective of the complexity of the primary count, 
> which is done at the polling booth by those clerks.  It's only in     
> _very_ close results, and in the stupid Senate paper that major       
> additional expense is incurred.                                       

even with that, our elections are very cheap to run. about $6 or $7 per
voter, IIRC.

> As you would not be able to reduce the number of poll clerks with
> e-voting, assuming that polling places continue to exist similar to
> now, then I don't see much opportunity for cost savings by e-voting.
> Any notion of removing polling places I cannot see happening in my
> (remaining) lifetime.

in fact, it would cost more (a lot more) because of the capital cost of
buying the machines, plus the ongoing expense of storing, maintaining
and auditing them.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)