BBV: Here's how Venezuela will be counting votes on Aug 19:

[AP]

Automated system to be used

Another controversial issue that the CNE addressed was the use of an automated system to conduct the recall vote. CNE president Francisco Carrasquero announced that they have decided to opt for the automated system over the manual one, which traditionally has led to claims of fraud.

The CNE recently decided to purchase 21,000 voting machines from a US-Venezuelan consortium to conduct all votes. These machines allow voters to cast their ballots on a touch-screen and to then print out their vote on a paper ballot and drop it into a conventional ballot box. According to the CNE this would making counting the vote results practically instantaneous and more transparent, but would also allow re-verification via the paper ballots.

The opposition, however, has said that it rejects the voting mahines because it suspects that the CNE will use the machines to manipulate the vote. Pro-Chavez legislator Luis Tascon reacted to this claim, though, by saying that it is the opposition that wants less transparency. "They want to commit fraud with the manual process as they have done in the past. They want to fake the results at the polling stations. Technological tools {such as the voting machines} guarantee transparency, are auditable, and guarantee that the voter's ballot is respected," said Tascon in a recent press conference.

According to Tascon, the opposition has many supporters who work within the CNE bureaucracy and could, theoretically, make votes disappear. With the combination of a completely transparent computerized process and paper ballots, this type of fraud would not be possible.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1287

[Eric J in MN]

1. Why not just use paper ballots and have people from both major

Why not just use paper ballots and have people from both major parties count the votes together at each polling place?

In front of the public.

That is transparency, not using machines.

[AP]

4. Because they want instantaneous counting. Often it's when things are close

that ballot boxes get tossed in the bay (SF) or machines start failing (Alameda county) or brothers start getting busy (FL).

Count the votes as they come in, and there's not much that can be done. And why fuck witht the software? The paper trail is right there.

[kiahzero]

5. Plus, no malformed ballots

One of the problems in Florida were valid ballots that had the chads still attached; if you've got a well-tested program outputting the ballots, there won't be the same kind of problems.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Canada and Spain use paper ballots and get the results the

Canada and Spain use paper ballots and get the results the same night.

With regard to "instantaneous," they can't annnounce each vote after it's cast, or there would be no privacy.

[AP]

7. So long as you can have a manual recount for any reason, there's little

difference. And the way VZ's doing it, there less incentive to destroy ballots. If you count them instantaneously, destroying them only creates a discrepency. It can't totally expunge the vote.

[kiahzero]

2. Wow

Venezuela's voting system is better than ours.

That's... sad.

[AP]

3. That's because the fascist's aren't in charge there.

[BevHarris]

8. More excellent news. I can see the headline now:

"United States asks banana republic for advice on how to hold trustworthy elections"