Bruce Schneier: Wrong on this one

I often read Bruce Schneier's blog because he covers topics in security and cryptography. His security ideas are often on target but miss the point. (He's concerned with the security devices and often fails to account for psychology and why people do what they do. More on that another time.) His posts on cyptography are another story. These are usually excellent and insightful. You should read these, but skip the security posts.

Tonight, I saw the following:

The Inherent Inaccuracy of Voting

In a New York Times op-ed, New York University sociology professor Dalton Conley points out that vote counting is inherently inaccurate:

The rub in these cases is that we could count and recount, we could examine every ballot four times over and we'd get -- you guessed it -- four different results. That's the nature of large numbers -- there is inherent measurement error. We'd like to think that there is a "true" answer out there, even if that answer is decided by a single vote. We so desire the certainty of thinking that there is an objective truth in elections and that a fair process will reveal it.

But even in an absolutely clean recount, there is not always a sure answer. Ever count out a large jar of pennies? And then do it again? And then have a friend do it? Do you always converge on a single number? Or do you usually just average the various results you come to? If you are like me, you probably settle on an average. The underlying notion is that each election, like those recounts of the penny jar, is more like a poll of some underlying voting population.

He's right, but it's more complicated than that.

That's a quote from Schneier's blog. I was mortified to see that Schneier agreed with Conley who obviously has no idea what he's talking about. If you have a jar of pennies you can count them exactly. The fact that the one counting may make mistakes is a fault of the process. To correct that, you need a better process.

Here's how one person put it in the comments:

I don't think that Dalton Conley has ever counted a large jar of pennies.

If your count doesn't converge on a single number, then you aren't doing it correctly. Clear a large flat surface. Create stacks of 10 pennies. Group the stacks of 10 by 10s. Collect the groups of 100 by 10. Check the stacks, check the groups, check the collections. Check again. Have your friend repeat the checks. Resolve any discrepancies.

This is accounting, not quantum physics. The pennies are all on the table in front of you and if you can't get an accurate accounting, you aren't trying hard enough.

This fellow, Ray, made me smile.