Vote counting
Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. Counts are simplest in parliamentary systems where just one choice is on the ballot. In other political systems where many choices are on the same ballot, counts are often done by computers to give quick results.
About Vote counting in brief
Vote counting is the process of counting votes in an election. It can be done manually or by machines. Counts are simplest in parliamentary systems where just one choice is on the ballot, and these are often counted manually. In other political systems where many choices are on the same ballot, counts are often done by computers to give quick results. Tallies done at distant locations must be carried or transmitted accurately to the central election office. Manual counts are usually accurate within one percent. Computers are at least that accurate, except when they have undiscovered bugs, broken sensors scanning the ballots, paper misfeeds, or hacks. Officials keep election computers off the internet to minimize hacking, but the manufacturers are on the internet. Further voting machines are in public locations on election day, and often the night before, so they are vulnerable. Paper ballots and computer files of results are stored until they are tallied, so need secure storage, which is hard. The election computers themselves are stored for years, and briefly tested before each election. Intentional errors are fraud, if allowed by officials, and observers may not be believed. Close review by observers may detect fraud, and officials may not believe it. In the US, only Massachusetts and District of Columbia give anyone a legal right to see ballot marks during hand counting. US policy since the 1980s has been to let fraudulent winners take office and keep office for years until convicted, and impose 8-14 years in prison. Counting took 86 seconds of staff per vote in Washington, USA, but took less than two seconds of time when hand counting took place in Washington State, Washington, D.C., and New York State, and it is legal to give anyone two years of prison time per vote per vote, but only two years per vote when hand count took place.
The press obtained copies of many ballots in the 2000 Presidential election in Florida to recount after the Supreme Court halted official recounts. Different methods resulted in different winners. Copies of ballots are known to be available for release in Alabama, Arizona, Humboldt County CA, Michigan,New York State and Dane County Wisconsin. The fact that different parties and citizens count with independent systems protects against errors from bugs and hacks. A checksum for the file identifies true copies. Election machines which scan ballots typically create such image files automatically,though those images can be hacked or be subject to bugs if the election machine is hacked or has bugs. If counting is not done immediately, or if courts accept challenges which can require re-examination of ballots, the ballots need to be securely stored, which can be problematic. The tallying may be done at night at the end of the last day of voting, as in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, and Spain, or the next day, or 1–2 weeks later in the US. If there is more than one contest on theSame sheet of paper, the sorting and counting are repeated for each contest. This method has been used in Burkina Faso, Russia, Sweden, United States and Zimbabwe.
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This page is based on the article Vote counting published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
