Professor's Model Helps Ensure Election Accuracy

A UC Berkeley professor has developed a new method to better determine the accuracy of voting results, a formula which will be used in some counties today.

Philip Stark, a statistics professor, has developed an audit system to check the voting machines' accuracy in comparison to the manual count.

"There was previously no method of auditing that certified that you got the right answer," Stark said.

The method takes a random sample of precincts and tests to see whether each precinct's margin of error between the computer's count and a manual count is small enough to be considered insignificant.

"What we are basically trying to see is whether there are a large amount of samples with a small enough error," he said.

State law requires that voting results be verified through an audit to ensure the accuracy of the voting machines, with a manual count being the primary method used, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen's Web site.

But before his method, it was difficult to ensure that counts provided a reliable level of confidence, Stark said.

"If we don't know if our votes are being counted properly (by the voting machines), then its not really democracy," he said.

According to Chief Deputy Secretary of State Evan Goldberg, there are currently no official plans to use Stark's method in future elections.

"It all depends on what the legislature decides," he said.

Stark's method came after Bowen commissioned a statewide Post-Election Audit Standards Working Group in order to develop a way to improve the accuracy of election counts.

Many said the group's work has changed the elections process to include more accurate results.

"I think the work done by our group was ground-breaking," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation.

Some recommendations made by the group, such as the auditing of 10 percent of counts in a precinct where the winning margin was five percent or less, have already been implemented in California elections.

While no future plans have been developed for his method, Stark said it is currently in the experimental phase.

"We're just testing to see if the results are feasible," Stark said.

Tags: RESEARCH & IDEAS, ELECTIONS 2008