tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694049208920605.post1052562567476795480..comments2023-12-14T06:40:22.461-08:00Comments on Erich the Green: The Column the Examiner Wouldn't PrintErich the Greenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11433590628245316583noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694049208920605.post-24763420228056413532010-11-17T13:48:46.512-08:002010-11-17T13:48:46.512-08:00That trustee mix-up was another shock. My guess is...That trustee mix-up was another shock. My guess is that the system had two inconsistent name-sorting algorythms, one that had space before hyphen and the other vice-versa. This is rinky-dink stuff, whoever designed & tested that software should be demoted. If they'd been in charge in 1999 we'd all be Y2K survivalists by now. <br /><br />Luckily people's general mistrust of computer voting led to the inclusion of the papar backup and this incident proved why it was needed. So now what about elections that didn't have it?Erich the Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11433590628245316583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694049208920605.post-41662077045305824012010-11-17T13:45:54.159-08:002010-11-17T13:45:54.159-08:00On election night the official word from the Clerk...On election night the official word from the Clerk (as reported 2nd-hand on Rogers) was that "there are no glitches, it's just taking the computers a longer time to compile the results". I haven't seen any reports since then about counting speed. <br /><br />I can't imagine what the bottleneck was, computers are designed to count at superhuman speeds. Not even any complicated calculations, just simple addition. Now, if it were a matter of a lot of polls reporting late I could understand that, but surely they were all finished voting by 1 hour after polls closed. Add 30 minutes to deliver data to City Hall and the counting should have been done by 10 pm. Was there a lack of connection ports, or some kind of overly-secure encryption or password system?<br />It was not this bad in the past, so far as I recall. One of the supposed benefits of computerizing was to be the faster results. FAIL!<br /><br />I don't blame the Clerk, she's doing a great job and would have had to work with whatever equipment won the RFP. But we should definitely cross that company off future bid lists and perhaps even get some kind of discount.<br /><br />We should also re-evaluate the cost of computerized vs. paper and weigh that against the benefits and risks. I don't know which is cheaper, they have different training and materials profiles. Certainly if we're paying more for touch-screens then it's not money well-spent.Erich the Greenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11433590628245316583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5694049208920605.post-8844756409492832652010-11-17T11:01:48.067-08:002010-11-17T11:01:48.067-08:00Good points Erich.
GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out....Good points Erich. <br />GIGO. Garbage In, Garbage Out. I learned long ago, when I was in the computer business, that if you computerize a lousy manual system you'll get - you guessed it - a lousy digital one. I remain puzzled at the slowness of the returns in Barrie this past election. Has there been an explanation?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14013939298149366429noreply@blogger.com