SMC Times: Elections Office Gets Tips from Experts

Rebekah Gordon of the San Mateo Times has written a piece about some of our auditing work:

Elections Office gets tips from experts

By Rebekah Gordon

SAN MATEO — In an effort to make the counting and recounting of votes more open to the public, San Mateo County election officials have embraced those who some might call their critics.

Since the June primaries, some of the area's key voting researchers and advocates have been hunkered at the Elections Office on Tower Road, trying to understand how the county counts and verifies its votes, and how all of that is changing with the advent of electronic voting machines.

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I should mention that the 10-sided dice work is from Arel Cordero, David Wagner and David Dill ("The Role of Dice in Election Audits—Extended Abstract"). Arel and Wagner are playing important roles in this auditing work.

This quote needs a few words added to it (in bold):

Hall knows these suggestions have to be tempered with practicality, which they can only get a grasp of by setting foot in the Elections Office.

"How can we get as close as possible to the ideal without completely devastating their election staff?" Hall said. "We talked about what is the ideal case and looked at some of the complications, trying to get as close as possible."