Re:Cursive Handwriting and Other Education Myths (2016)
by specialist on Saturday November 11, 2017 @10:39AM
(#15676745)
FWIW: Postal ballots require signatures. Election administrators often use software to assist and sometimes automate this task. The "challenge" rate varies, depending on competency, but can be as high as 1 per 1000. Which has definitely had an impact in close races.
Said as a recovering election integrity activist: the automated signature recognition systems I studied, some 10 years back, should be utterly rejected. The error rate (both false positive and negative) is unacceptable for elections. And much of this cannot be fixed with better algorithms. Signatures change as you age, you injured your wrist, and so forth.
Just as onerous, the election vendor businesses where pushing a "per voter" fee structure. So instead of just selling you the gear, they'd also charge 10 cents for every signature compared. On top of every ballot printed, mailed, tracked, etc.
In short, the push to postal balloting is basically a rent seeking exercise, to make up for the loss of revenue post-touchscreen debacle, and much more expensive overall.
Oh, I almost forgot a tidbit. Our State Patrol, who investigate check fraud, were employed to train our election signature verifiers. At the time, both they and the banks would only use the software to flag signatures, never to fully automate the task.
Said as a recovering election integrity activist: the automated signature recognition systems I studied, some 10 years back, should be utterly rejected. The error rate (both false positive and negative) is unacceptable for elections. And much of this cannot be fixed with better algorithms. Signatures change as you age, you injured your wrist, and so forth.
Just as onerous, the election vendor businesses where pushing a "per voter" fee structure. So instead of just selling you the gear, they'd also charge 10 cents for every signature compared. On top of every ballot printed, mailed, tracked, etc.
In short, the push to postal balloting is basically a rent seeking exercise, to make up for the loss of revenue post-touchscreen debacle, and much more expensive overall.
Oh, I almost forgot a tidbit. Our State Patrol, who investigate check fraud, were employed to train our election signature verifiers. At the time, both they and the banks would only use the software to flag signatures, never to fully automate the task.