Characteristic | TOBI | AHCPB | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
Uses durable paper ballots | Yes | Yes | Both very similar in this regard. Durable paper ballots can be completed by hand or using touch-screen assistant equipment which is coupled with a ballot printer, and prints a full ballot identical to one completed by hand except that the bubbles are filled in without any variation. In the precinct, another approach is to have voters fill in the ballots by hand but run them through a quality-control scanner which checks for over and under votes. Vote-by-Mail (VBM) is extremely popular in CA and rural states, and is the only method used in some states like Oregon. Durable paper ballots are compatible with VBM. |
Complexity | Higher | Lower | AHCPB is easy to understand. This is a key benefit to the AHCBP approach over TOBI. However, we believe the concept of capturing all ballot images is still easy to understand. |
Supports Early VBM processing | Yes | Yes* | AHCPB requires that VBM ballots that are processed and validated are brought back to the precinct for hand-counting. |
Supports Later VBM processing | Yes | No | In CA for example, VBM ballots can be accepted with a valid postmark up to three-days after election day. Also, if no signature is provided, then the voter is notified, and has up to eight days to provide a signature. These ballots, as well as any which are not fully processed in terms of signature validation prior to election day, are not processable by AHCPB in the precinct. |
Supports All-Mail precincts | Yes | No | Some states, like Oregon, use all-mail ballot election processing. AHCPB is not compatible with these states. Also, any precincts which are all-mail are not hand-countable in the precinct and would require teams to be set up by elections officials. |
Cost | Low | High | AHCPB requires manual labor which is feasible only in small districts and with simple ballots (with limited number of ballot options) |
Error Rate | ~0% | 1 to 2% | Although Hand-counted paper ballots is viewed as the "gold standard," in practice counting votes on paper ballots, the error rate is 1% to 2% according to recent scientific studies. OBI has the potential to eliminate nearly all errors due to the redundant recognition phase and comparison between differing groups, and then joint resolution of each ballot where any difference is detected between competing groups. Citizens Oversight conducted a study in San Diego sampling 5% of the precincts (85) in 2008. In the sample, only 15% of the precincts were able to balance the number of ballots issues, voted, spoiled, blank and the number of signatures matched the number of voted ballots and the number of scanned ballots. We have very little confidence that temporary workers in precincts can count the vote on complex, multi-page ballots. |
Recount Cost | Very Low | High | This is where TOBI really shines. As seen in recent multi-state recount, it is very expensive ($millions) to recount an entire state. MI charged $125 per precinct to recount. In TOBI, the cost to recount is minimal, and recounts would likely never need to be performed because the process INCLUDES redundant tabulations, i.e continual recounts. |
Precinct Chain of Custody Requirements | Similar | Similar | The number of Issued Ballots should equal the number of blank, voted, spoiled, and completed ballots. Also, the number of ballots included in the vote tabulation should equal the number of voted ballots and the number of voters who signed-in. |
Post-election day chain of Custody | Low | High | To allow for recounting, AHCPB requires that the ballots remain in secure custody as they are the only record of the election. In TOBI, once the ballots have been resolved to images, the actual physical ballots are only required for the audit process. The image data can be stored redundantly and can persist even if the original ballots are destroyed in a fire or flood. Also, there is little cost involved in maintaining the image data longer than the 22 months required for other election materials like ballots. by federal election code. |
Supports Provisional Ballots | Yes | No | Provisional ballots are important if there is any question as to the validity of the voter or any other reason, to preserve the right of the voter to cast a ballot. The number of provisional ballots can be minimized by using equipment that will print the appropriate ballot at the voting location. However, provisionals are still necessary for voters who are normally VBM voters who do not have their mail ballot to surrender. |
Ranked Voting | Yes | No* | AHCPB can support Rank-Choice voting but only at high cost and time. TOBI can resolve rank-choice voting with redundant cross-checking. AHCPB can't do RCV over large regions or with any time delays, and it is virtually impossible to provide enough oversight to be confident that RCV results are correct. In fact, TOBI is the ONLY method we are aware of that can cost-effectively support RCV and also provide sufficient transparency to allow 100% continual audits of the result by third parties. Note: Support of TOBI does NOT imply the use of RCV. |
Other voting schemes | Yes | Mixed | There are a variety of voting schemes such as Single Transferrable Vote (STV), Approval Voting, and proportional representation. AHCPB can support these if easy-to-count voting methods are but not effectively if RCV is used. |
Effective Audits | Easy, low cost | High cost | AHCPB relies on the notion that hand-counting is a reliable approach in the precinct and that with many people present, it is unlikely that they will cooperate and stuff the ballot box. To audit AHCPB, it is required that some random precincts are re-hand-counted. TOBI is based on continual independent 100% audits by third parties of the image data, and still requires the inspection of ballots to insure there is correspondence with physical ballots. |
Supports Risk Limiting Audits | Yes | -- | Election officials may want to utilize risk-limiting audits (RLA) to check their work before certification. The use of RLA does not eliminate the need for TOBI, however, because RLAs require that election officials are trusted to conduct the RLA properly. AHCPB probably would not use RLA because they are already hand-counting all ballots. |
Oversight Cost | Low | High | It is very difficult to provide oversight to thousands of teams and precincts, which is required in the AHCPB scenario. The underlying assumption in AHCPB relied upon is that counts in precincts is relatively reliable due to the presence of citizen volunteers and structured oversight is not required. We disagree with this assumption and assert that structured oversight is required for each hand-counting team. There is no way to check the result at the end. |
Risk of Fraud | Lower | Higher | Both have low risk, but since it is very difficult to confirm counts in AHCPB approach, we see that fraud could more easily occur if there is cooperation at precincts among poll workers. There is a slightly higher risk as ballots are transported from polling places to a central scanning facility in TOBI but lower risk as once the ballots are scanned, the tabulation can be more easily checked and once frozen using Block-Chain and Secure Hash Algorithm technology, it is essentially impossible to modify the election. |
Needs "Open Source" | No | No | TOBI can use Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) scanners without any risk that corporations with an agenda will be able to manipulate the images. Once the image data is determined and frozen, it matters not what sort of software and equipment is used to recognize the vote and create the final Cast Vote Record, as anyone can perform their own analysis of the image data. |
Positive Ballot Tracking | Yes | No | TOBI proposes that each ballot should be endorsed either prior to scanning or as it is scanned with a unique numerical identifier, the ballot number. This means the number is actually imprinted on the ballot itself and incorporated into the image. It may be appropriate to also include a barcode or other means to easily extract the ballot number from the image when the vote is extracted, but we assume the number can be recognized using OCR. Thus, each and every ballot can be tracked through the system and retrieved if necessary to compare with the images. AHCPB has no mechanism to track every ballot and relies on chain of custody to maintain control of ballots. |
Scalable | Yes | No | AHCPB is not scalable because it expands linearly with ballot options, even if you have unlimited teams. TOBI expands with number of pages on the ballot but that can be reduced by adding machines. |
t(total AHCPB) ~ t(count one vote)*voters(per precinct)*options(avg per ballot) * tries(avg) / teams(per precinct).Based on our experience observing manual tally accuracy, it is generally required that two teams count all votes and compare to detect errors. The fastest and most accurate AHCPB procedure (the read-and-tally method) processes each ballot in its entirety before going to the next. If ballots have multiple pages, they can be split up into separate teams but sorting by pages is also time consuming. When the number of options per ballot is high, the time per ballot increases and there is no way to improve that. There is never any improvement in AHCPB due to technology improvements.
TOBI process t(total TOBI) ~ voters * [ sheets(per ballot) / (num_imagescanners * ppm) + t(recognize votes in one ballot) / (imaging processing computers)].TOBI leverages technology and time to process an election can be much lower.
Page 7:They are claiming 2.4 seconds per ballot per race, in a special case of only two candidates in one race. This is faster than the 3.5 seconds we have chosen to use below. Please note that the quote above is for an AUDIT of races already scanned. So the race need only be hand-counted one time and then compared with the machine count. If you use ONLY hand-counted ballots, then you must count AT LEAST TWICE so you can have the teams compare to make sure their result is reliable. Teams MUST work independently, so the time savings claimed here goes away. Constants:
"When two teams of two auditors (four people) counted votes for two candidates in a mayoral primary, they reached agreement on the visual count for both candidates at a rate of 125 ballots every five minutes, so that a reporting unit with 1,000 ballots could be verified in 40 minutes. A hand count of the same precinct would have taken the same number of people at least two hours."
Characteristic | TOBI | AHCPB | Comments |
---|---|---|---|
AHCPB | |||
Parameter | Value | Unit | Comment |
tally time per option | 3.5 | sec | See above. |
tries per ballot | 2.2 | tries | we assume two teams do every precinct until they match, and 20% of the time they have a do-over |
teams per precinct | 2 | team | |
worker per team | 4 | workers | |
Cost per worker / hour | 19.5 | $15 * 1.3 = $19.50 | Only direct costs per worker, not fully burdened govt style |
TOBI | |||
Parameter | Value | Unit | Comment |
image scanner rate | 250 | image/min | Assumes double side ballot |
recognition rate | 1200 | ballot/min | Not sure of this number, highly dependent on machine and software |
Cost per worker /hour | 60 | On per-machine basis | Only direct costs per worker, not fully burdened govt style |
Characteristic | TOBI | AHCPB | Comments | |||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Location | Voters | Ballot Sheets |
Sides | Options Per Ballot |
Precincts | Percent VBM |
scanners | Image Recognition Machines |
AHCPB Time (hours) |
AHCPB Cost per precinct |
AHCPBCost Total ($) |
AHCPB Cost per Voter |
TOBI Scanning Time (hours) |
TOBI Recognition Time (hours) |
TOBI Total Time (hrs) |
TOBI Time Election Night (hrs) |
TOBI Cost Total ($) |
TOBI Cost Per Voter ($) |
Los Angeles | 5500000 | 1 | t2 | 30 | 4000 | 60% | 20 | 15 | 11.03 | 1720.47 | 6881875 | 1.25125 | 36.67 | 5.09 | 41.76 | 16.70 | 50111.11 | 0.0091 |
San Diego | 1500000 | 2 | 2 | 30 | 1550 | 60% | 10 | 8 | 7.76 | 1210.89 | 1876875 | 1.25125 | 40.00 | 2.60 | 42.60 | 17.04 | 25562.50 | 0.0170 |
seq | precinct | contests | ballots | time (hrs) | time (minutes) | total ballot-races | time per ballot-race (min) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
32 | 110150 | 26 | 150 | 9.58 | 575 | 176 | 3.27 |
363 | 237200 | 25 | 182 | 18.16 | 1,090 | 207 | 5.26 |
368 | 240000 | 26 | 203 | 13.33 | 800 | 229 | 3.49 |
418 | 270510 | 27 | 281 | 37.50 | 2,250 | 308 | 7.31 |
597 | 376700 | 27 | 226 | 12.42 | 745 | 253 | 2.94 |
637 | 403500 | 12 | 138 | 6.50 | 390 | 150 | 2.60 |
670 | 404230 | 11 | 70 | 4.25 | 255 | 81 | 3.15 |
686 | 405400 | 13 | 148 | 7.67 | 460 | 161 | 2.86 |
857 | 420520 | 12 | 150 | 11.42 | 685 | 162 | 4.23 |
877 | 423900 | 11 | 47 | 2.17 | 130 | 58 | 2.24 |
991 | 442800 | 16 | 159 | 5.75 | 345 | 175 | 1.97 |
1229 | 487000 | 15 | 191 | 15.35 | 921 | 206 | 4.47 |
1332 | 528200 | 12 | 137 | 8.83 | 530 | 149 | 3.56 |
1418 | 538500 | 13 | 128 | 7.5 | 450 | 141 | 3.19 |
1431 | 546600 | 13 | 92 | 3.75 | 225 | 105 | 2.14 |
1454 | 549280 | 14 | 123 | 5.67 | 340 | 137 | 2.48 |
AVERAGE: | 3.45 |
Title | The Open Ballot Initiative vs. Hand Counted Paper Ballots |
Publisher | Citizens Oversight |
Author | Ray Lutz |
Pub Date | 2016-12-25 |
Media Link | |
Remote Link | |
Embed HTML | |
Forum Link | |
Note | |
Keywords | Election Integrity |
Media Type | Article |
Media Group | Blog Entry |
Book ISBN | |
Author Name Sortable | |
Publish Status | Published |
Thumbnail Link |
I | Attachment | Action | Size | Date | Who | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1433i.pdf | manage | 299 K | 05 Jan 2017 - 16:08 | Raymond Lutz | Sample of a PDF containing two sides of a ballot in an image file. | |
1_Manual_Tally_Spreadsheet_Report_June_2016-_San_Diego_County_Final.pdf | manage | 575 K | 04 Jan 2017 - 23:28 | Raymond Lutz | San Diego Manual Tally Report spreadsheet | |
DevelopmentReport-DigitalImageAudits-WI-audit-proposal.pdf | manage | 987 K | 05 Jan 2017 - 22:48 | Raymond Lutz | Proposal for digital image approach for audits in WI |