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redditspacer t1_izt831b wrote

Reply to comment by PaulitoTuGato in Recount flips Mass. House election to Democrat by 1 vote by TurretLauncher

This finding was the result of a recount.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_izt8jkx wrote

I understand. The first count had an outcome, the second count had a different outcome. Would a third count have a different outcome than the second count or first count? How was the first count incorrect?

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LetMeSleepNoEleven t1_izth833 wrote

I think your question assumes a level of arbitrariness above what exists.

The machines are coded to read ballots in certain ways. If a ballot is damaged in some way (a crease in the target area for example), the computerized reading can be wrong.

However, if a human looks at the damaged ballot, the intention of the voter may be absolutely clear.

The hand-recount includes a process to adjudicate those.

While I think that a difference of one vote only should require a second round of review, it’s not like two people counted out a pile of cards and got different numbers. The ballots in question here are a small minority of the total ballots and it’s not a question of counting error but reading error.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztku63 wrote

I think I understand what you are saying. My point was that when two separate counts don’t add up the same sum, most people would count again to at least try to verify the first or second count. I dunno, that’s what I would do. Maybe they should recount the ballots that changed the outcome of the original count a month ago?

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LetMeSleepNoEleven t1_iztlmwi wrote

I think it would make sense to review the ballots in question again, yes.

Edit: but the intent of some (or all) of those may be very obvious to the human eye, though not clear to a computer.

If two hand counts differed, I’d be more concerned. That might indicate that some ballots are not clearly marked for computer or for human reading.

But yes, again, I think when it’s this close, some extra scrutiny on the ballots in question is in order.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztn8ti wrote

That’s all I’m saying. Thank you for sharing your insight! I have learned some things I didn’t know today

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PinPlastic9980 t1_izufx3i wrote

during a hand recount usually multiple individuals (representing both candidates) are reviewing the ballots together. less likely to have issues during a recount than the machine counts as they will recount a set until the numbers line up for everyone.

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knign t1_iztjdu1 wrote

Third count would very likely produce a different outcome, but the law doesn't require (or even allow) another recount.

Important part of orderly elections is finality. People vote, votes are counted, in some situation recounted, and that's it. Whoever won, won.

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LetMeSleepNoEleven t1_iztvx8h wrote

Third count (second by hand) would likely produce the same outcome as the first by hand.

Usually a hand recount is a very careful review by multiple people to catch and accurately record votes that the machines couldn’t read due to damages to the ballot.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztjtmq wrote

Well that’s scary! I didn’t know that, and it doesn’t make sense to me. Thank you for enlightening me

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knign t1_iztlinl wrote

I mean, do you see an alternative? Every recount might change the result by a few votes, but we can't recount ad infinitum.

Mathematically speaking, with such a small difference, it's a draw. Neither candidate provably received more votes, but we have to select one. You can toss a coin (which is what they'd do if results were exactly equal), or stop after 1-st recount. Nothing is wrong with any of that.

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alongfield t1_iztre66 wrote

The process used in MA makes another recount largely pointless.

The way MA recounts work, you have teams of two people for each ballot, and sets of 50 ballots. One reads the ballot and the other tallies. Other people can watch this process from right behind the readers if they're concerned the reader might misread ballots and can protest a call. (This is where the representatives for the protester would be, keeping their own tally.) Protested and ambiguous ballots are reviewed by the board of registrars. (At least 3 on the board.) The lawyer for the candidate that protested is also with that review board, as well.

The ballots in question went through this process, were protested, and 3+ other people reviewed, and determined whether to use the ballot and reading as called. At a minimum, you should have 5 people that just looked at that same ballot, plus observers.

Further action from there is to go to court over specific ballots that had been protested at the time of recount.

It's a pretty solid process.

https://www.sec.state.ma.us/ele/elepdf/Election-Recounts.pdf

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztmc4m wrote

I get what you are saying, it can’t go on recounting forever and a vote or two isn’t much. The fact that counts can’t ever be verified to specific numbers is scary to me, and leads me more into lacking faith in our election system

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knign t1_iztok26 wrote

I don't know if you were old enough around year 2000 to witness this whole Florida recount debacle, "pregnant chads" and all that, but this was a good illustration why counting paper ballot is always imprecise, to some small degree. You can alter design of the ballot to minimize factor of randomness, and enforce some strict standards on canvassers, but it will never be zero.

The only ultimate solution here is electronic voting, where voter's intent can't be misinterpreted; however, in practice, people will never trust machines (even with paper trail), because "everything can be hacked". So we are stuck with paper ballots.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztq147 wrote

I was born in 86 and wasn’t interested in politics until more recently. It is a complicated system that I still don’t fully understand. What is your opinion on mail in ballots? I didn’t vote that way, I don’t know how they look or how they are counted. If you have any insight I would appreciate it. It seems plausible to me that these could be some of the ballots you mentioned having to be inspected by a person?

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Shufflebuzz t1_iztgp2x wrote

> Would a third count have a different outcome than the second count or first count?

Best two out of three?
Yeah, this doesn't inspire confidence in the system.

> How was the first count incorrect?

Regardless of party and election deniers and crazy conspiracy theories, I'd expect an explanation.

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LetMeSleepNoEleven t1_iztwa0r wrote

Machine counts can easily be off by a few votes due to damaged or poorly marked ballots. The hand “recount” is mainly getting a human eye looking at the ballots the machine could not read.

It is not akin to two people each counting a pile of things and getting different numbers.

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PaulitoTuGato t1_iztiws1 wrote

If I counted 123 grapes and upon counting again I had 124 grapes, I’d have to count at least a third time, to feel confident in my count. With such a close discrepancy, I might count a total of 5 times to feel confident in the count. I know it doesn’t shed a good light on our voting systems. The damage has already been done.

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transwarp1 t1_izxh82k wrote

More like if you had a machine that counted 120 green grapes, and 115 red grapes, and then a team of 4 people who took out one grape at a time and decided to count it as red or green (or neither). You already had four people evaluate each one.

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