Reply #25: This is pure crap. We have a very hard time getting enough precinct workers in large counties

[eridani]

If you think that pulling several thousand people off the streets as temporary workers and getting them trained in security processes is no different than getting 10 or so, you are delusional. Precinct tabulations still have to be collated, and this is no trivial matter if you live in a state legislative district with parts of 5 different cities, 3 county council districts and 3 separate congressional districts. And in a county with 17 state legislative districts, some of which overlap with other counties. And then there are the school, sewer, water and fire districts, some of which split precincts. And intiatives, referenda, judicial elections.

Hand counting is the gold standard ONLY if you are counting a single race per ballot. Its accuracy falls off rapidly as you add more races to be counted. That's why Andy Stephenson favored optical scanning at locations where there are groups of precincts, followed up by random mandatory auditing. He actually did volunteer work as an elections worker, unlike so many of the bullshit artists that we generally hear from in Election Reform.