Italian paper electoral procedures (Hand Counted Paper Elections)

[kster]

The counting procedures are the following:

26) Ballot papers (voted and not voted) must remain, at all times, inside the polling room they started off in. The ballot boxes are visible to everybody at all times. Ballot papers are only taken to their final destination when the counting is over and the results of the polling room are made public.

27) Each ballot paper is checked by all six of the polling station workers and any of the parties representatives. In case of disagreement about who to assign the vote to, the president decides a temporary "position", but that ballot paper is sent to Court for a final decision. The counting is simultaneously managed by two scrutineers who both have their own paper record. Paper records have one page for each party and candidate, each page is made of small numbered squares: 1, 2, 3, 4 and so forth. As each vote is assigned to a party (and/or a candidate) scruteeners find its page on their own paper record, cross the next empty square and loudly read its number. All the time the two voices say the same number there are no problem, as soon as they differ everybody stops and check what has happened.
The final result of each party (and/or candidate) is simply the number of the last crossed little square of its own paper record.

28) At the end of the count, each polling room sends all the ballot papers and the official stamp to the competent authorities along with one copy of the official statement, signed by all six workers of the polling room. These are kept for a number of years. The government calculates the official figures from the official reports of the polling rooms. The second copy of the statement is collected by the local authorities.

29) Each local authority collects the results of its polling rooms and therefore calculates the results on a local level, independently of the national government.

30) Even parties calculate the results independently, since they have their representatives in each polling room. They can therefore compare their calculations with those of the government.

http://www.electronic-vote.org/TERMINI/italians_en.php

[autorank]

1. Yep, and they know how to life right too. K*R

[MADem]

2. I seem to recall the last election didn't go all that smoothly over in Italy.

Even WITH all of those precautions!!

Berlusconi was bullshit that he failed to stuff enough ballot boxes to keep the job--he tried to demand a recount....all you have to do is check the old news reports, there were allegations of MAJOR voter fraud flying THICK and FAST.

At the top of that sunny declaration:

Unfortunately the next sentence in no more true because an italian magazine in November, 2006 made allegations about the results of the April, 2006 general elections. To clear any doubt both the Houses of the Parliament have decided to recount ballot papers. The "Senato" will recount only its blank and void ballots all over Italy. The verification of only blank and void ballot papers is possible since they are stored apart from valid ones. The "Camera" will recount all its ballots (valid, blank, void) voted in 10% of the polling rooms. The polling room to be verified will be randomly selected and the recount will last until next July (about). If it will be proven that official records match the results of recounting no further recountig will be done. Otherwise a full recount will occur. Here is the news in english. If the recount will confirm the result, the quality of the italian paper procedures will be proven!

[kster]

3. Italy: electronic vote-counting experiment during 2006 general election

It is obvious to everyone that the above:

it should not be called "experiment"

Even if electronic results matched the manual ones in all 15000 polling rooms, this would not be a proof that they would match also in next elections. Infact in the next years hardware, software and also networks will surely different from those used for the so called "experimentation". At best the "experimentation" could only prove that computers can be programmed to sucessfully compute sums of integers and transmit the result to a central site! Infact the program simply added integer numbers (votes): 1 + 1 + 1 ...

it was useless...

Manual and electronic votes counting produce their results simultanoulsy and thus there are no advantage in adding electronic counting to the manual one. Futhermore the results were necesserely to be the manual ones, so counting them also electronically was a waste of time and money!

misbehaves...

the experiment was clearly useless, many of the technicians waited for the final manual result of the polling room and entered it into their computers. This
misbehave, while not allowed by the law, was generally accepted since in any case the final results were the manual ones as required by the law. In this way technicians saved a lot of clicking on their laptop (4 clicks each vote!) and the manual procedures went faster.

not every polling room run the "experiment" ...

Please note that in many polling room no "experiment" was carried out due to the lack of technicians. This happened in three out of six polling rooms of the polling station where I worked as a party representative

http://www.electronic-vote.org/NEWS/news_scrutinioe_en.php

[troubleinwinter]

4. One race vs. 50.

This is an Italian ballot- one item to count.



This is a Los Angeles ballot- ten pages, 52 items to count.



"each ballot paper is checked by all six of the polling station workers and any of the parties representatives". With 50 races, this will need to be done 50+ times per each ballot. Los Angeles County has nearly 4,000,000 voters. How many poll workers/counters will be needed for hand counts? How many poll workers are there presently?

[kster]

5. The old complicated ballot routine

skip to 5:40

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQMGIjChINA

[eridani]

25. Stupidity = the same idiotic rant that LA County = New Hampshire

Or King County, WA. Does Italy have state or provincial elections at the same time? Bond issues, referenda, fire, water and sewer commissioner elections? City council and school board races? I live in a state legislative district which is divided among 3 different congressional districts, containing parts of 5 different cities and even more fire, water and sewer districts. How dim to you have to be to think that poll workers can count all of that by hand?

[kster]

26. Joe Biden knows how to make it possible to Hand Count the Paper Ballots

Joe Bidens idea, along with the Italian vote count procedure will make it possible to hand count the paper ballots, you can sell you idea anyway you want, but, unless we take them ballots out of the optical scanned/ballot box and put them paper ballots into the hands of the American voter at the polling place at the close of election, for a people hand count we will remain a Lawless Country. You know that and I know that (period) :)

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/853216/candidate_challenge_joe_biden:)

[eridani]

27. Tell us all about how you got your county to switch to HCPB n/t

[Wilms]

7. Your post seems extremely biased. That's a given election in one jurisdiction.

The most recent ballot in Los Angeles had 8 races, including the primary.

Why don't you post images of a New Hampshire race where hand counts are done? Why don't you explain to us why hand counts are impractical where they are currently being done.

:shrug:

[troubleinwinter]

8. The ballot shown was 2006 General Election

I did not say that hand counting is "impractical" "where hand counts are done", obviously. I asked how many pollworkers/counters would be needed in a large county with a long and complicated ballot.

Primary ballots typically have many fewer items than GE ballots.

Nationwide, jurisdictions were about 25% short of pollworkers in the GE of 2006. The greatest difficulty is in recruiting pollworkers in in innercity, poor, minority and immigrant communities (areas with high rates of disenfranchisement as it is).

New Hampshire cast 45,000 votes in a few hand-count jurisdictions within the state in the 2008 primary, small areas with long tradition and experience with handcounts. Some 122,000,000 (as cast in 2004 GE) ballots will need to be accurately counted, not just 43,000.

I wonder about "practical" logistics of assuring election counts without chaos. I absolutely do not oppose handcounts. I oppose chaos and failure in our counts. I just read an MIT report of New Hampshire hand counts vs. opscans. Upon study of many NH recounts, opscans were shown to be more accurate than handcounts. I suport rigorous random audits for opscans.

The fact that L.A. had a 50+ item ballot General Election remains. My question about how we assure sufficient workers for handcounts, with an existing situation of 25% pollworker shortage, remains.

Your pointless accusation of "bias" does not answer legitimate questions in the face of pollworker shortages.

[Wilms]

10. How many jusisdictions have a "long and complicated ballot"? How many don't?

Bear in mind, some of the poll worker shortage is attributed to the introduction of electronic apparatus.

We could, of course, hand count all fed or even statewide races. We could hand count many of the elections in many places in the country...and I think we should.

You mentioned not opposing hand counts while in the same paragraph citing an MIT study that highlighted inaccuracies in NH where hand counts are still employed. You mentioned, as well, audits for Scanned elections.

I have zero doubt that Opscans are more accurate than hand counts...while being more vulnerable to tampering. That's why I think audits are called for even if the election is hand counted.

I also don't instantly equate difficulty with staffing a poll with disenfranchisement, though it certainly seems possible. Right off the bat, it seems it would take more time to get results. I'll be patient.

Please consider that one really big thing going against Hand Counts are the Torch and Pitchfork types advocating it.

To me, that's not sufficient reason to oft post images of ballots of probably the toughest jurisdiction to manage in the entire country. To me, that is bias.

There are plenty of places where implementing hand counts would work fine and would serve as a bit of an economic and even community-building boost.

That's my bias despite some of the other advocates. Can you add anything to it???

BTW Dave Berman is having some success pushing Hand Counts in Humboldt County. I'm sure you'll want to offer appreciation on one of the threads about it.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x497421

[troubleinwinter]

11. I'm not sure that we have disagreement.

"one really big thing going against Hand Counts are the Torch and Pitchfork types advocating it." I could not agree more.

"Some of the poll worker shortage is attributed to the introduction of electronic apparatus". True. Nevertheless, I'm sure it can be agreed that pollworker shortages exist and additional workers would need to be recruited for hand counting. Perhaps it can be done, perhaps not. We don't know at the present time. Conscription may be an option. If so, it should be discussed, rather than relying on claims by some of, "My neighbors and I will count the ballots!"

I think Dave Berman in Humboldt County is one of the real heroes along with his fellow community activists and organizations, who are walking-the-walk, implementing it on the ground and honestly dealing with the challenging issues of convincing officials and recruiting community members to count.

I think hand counting will have to be incrementally adopted by localities. Once practical logistics are proven successful, hopefully more and more communities, counties and states will be able to build upon these successes.

Posting an actual ballot from a U.S. election is no more "biased" than equating single race ballots from Italy or Canada to ours which have no similarity.

Whether hand-counted or opscanned, there certainly must be proper hand audits.

Again, I agree that the "torch & pitchfork" advocates generally merely wave pom-poms to no effect, distract from legitimate discussion of logistical implementation and set back any chance of bringing officials on-board and working with them toward the goal by accusing them of being "all a bunch of lying criminal fuckers".

[Wilms]

12. I agree.

Except that "...practical logistics are proven successful...", emphasis mine.

Hand Counts, of course,are done to this day.

Let's bear in mind, too, that most of the security measures required for Hand Counts are required for the protection of ballots optically scanned.

[eridani]

23. I'd suggest a different method for auditing hand counts out of general principle

Stacking and weighing is a good option. Paleontologists count tree rings and also do 14C dating.

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

30. NC has around 24 contests on the GE ballot, New Hampshire only 12

And New Hampshire used to have straight ticket voting, which would simplify the
tallying of the ballots.

They discontinued it recently.

[Stevepol]

6. Oh my God, bring some of those people over here to give us some advice. K&R!

[Land Shark]

9. Hopeful news here; REMEMBER, contempt w/o investigation is highly intellectually dishonest

Hopefully those with doubts are on their way to Italy to investigate -- I wish them the Best! :)

[Wilms]

13. Thanks for this post, kster.

It's a great seeing such a profile of a particular application of HCPB.

[kster]

14. Thanks, Al Gore said the same thing

"Machines can sometimes misread or fail to detect the way ballots are cast, and when there are serious doubts, checking the machine count with a careful hand count is accepted far and wide as the best way to know the true intentions of the voters".

What Al Gore said "a careful hand count" is how Italy counts their ballots in the first place.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=469812&mesg_id=469812

:)

[Wilms]

15. Very nice. But Al was talking about FL2000.

That's a different context. And by posting it (out of context) it makes you look like an annoying Torch and Pitchfork Pom-Pom idiot.

Of course, that isn't the case. So why risk your reputation? :shrug:

[kster]

16. GOP candidate Albert Howard on Hand Counted Paper Ballots, February 16, 2008

"The very best thing New Hampshire could do is decertify the current equipment and find alterative means of vote counting. I strongly recommend hand counting all of the ballots. New Hampshire has established such an excellent system for community vote-counting, and the hand count method - especially the sort and stack method as was used for the recounts --that has time and time again proven to be the most accurate and by far the least costly method of counting citizens' votes".


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x497470


Does that make Al Gore, Dennis Kucinich and Albert Howard Torch and Pitchfork Pom-Pom idiots?

Of course not, and I don't think they would risk their reputations, do you? :shrug:

[Wilms]

17. Re-read what I wrote.

It's not what they said. It's what you post, the context, the forum, etc.

You attract being talked down to because you talk down to the participants here with your near-ceaseless harangue.

People here know the drill. In GD, or whatever, it may be appropriate to stage a "rally". This forum is (or used to be about) the actual workings of the voting system...the forum was once called "Voting Systems" or something like that.

In the midst of DISCUSSION, a rally is disruptive. Your ALLCAPS and cursing are disruptive.

[kster]

18. This thread was made to show that

there is an honest way to count ballots, trying to reform a completely corrupted vote/counting system is impossible. By showing people that there are higher ups that agree, that Hand Counting the Ballots is by far the most accurate way of counting the ballots.

This thread provides what is:

A) The most accurate way to count ballots.

B) It gives reliable and respected sources to back up that fact up.

This is not a rally "thread" so to speak, these are the facts about what true election reform would look like. Hand Counted Paper Ballots its simple Wilms.

Get over it. :)

[Wilms]

19. Of course I realize that.

And the context of our sub-thread, if you will.

I think you'd need to be a door-knob (and I think you aren't) to miss the suggestion therein.

What you do with that, for the chILdRen, et. al., is up to you.

[kster]

20. Did you ever have an itch in the middle of your back,

you know the one you just can't reach no matter how hard you try, from now on I'm going to call that particular itch a "Wilms". :P

[kster]

21. Son of a bitch I have a Wilms

kick

[kster]

24. kick.nt

[kster]

22. kick.nt

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

28. They make some nice ass shoes and suits too

dont they? But they did end up with the fool for a prime minister.

Sheesh.

[kster]

29. They have more sense than us when it comes to counting ballots,

you know it and I know it, count the ballots out in the open, whether you want to hand count a small per cent of the ballots or All of the ballots at your polling place, DO IT !

Put web cams in place so that anyone in the Election Forum that wants to see the Hand Count take place, can log on and watch.

My side of the debate is easy, everyone can watch the ballots being counted. What a concept.

How do you want our ballots counted? :)

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

31. the big question KSTER is did YOU get hand counted paper ballots in your town?

or are you just blowing smoke up our a$$es?

[kster]

32. I'm not making the connection

how ballots must be counted in a democracy is based on whether or not kster got hand counted paper ballots in his town????

The paper ballots must be hand counted or hand audited at the polling place at the close of election.

What does your "big question" of the night have to do with how the ballots must be counted?

[WillYourVoteBCounted]

33. I just wondered if you had worked to get hand counted paper ballots

or whether you just liked to post at DU about it.

I support HCPB, but what I want to know is HOW you believe that objective
would be achieved?

Surely not by just posting here at DU?