I’ve already commented on Stefan Sharkansky — the Jeff Gannon Jim Guckert of the Washington press corps — rudely heckling Ron Sims at a press conference yesterday. The Snark snidely blogged about the “hails of derisive laughter” at Sims claim that the November election “had an accuracy rate that any bank would envy.” What Snark doesn’t tell his readers is that the laughter came solely (and deliberately) from him and one fellow malcontent.
Perhaps one of the reasons the assembled media didn’t laugh at the comparison, is that it’s not all that laughable. As TorridJoe and Daniel Kirkdorffer point out on their respective blogs (Also Also and On the Road to 2008), the banking system is not as error free as one might expect, and Washington state elections not quite so error prone as the righties make it out to be.
Both Joe and Daniel site an article by Bank Technology News, that says errors account for about 0.2 percent of online transactions.
“There is always going to be an error rate that they have to live with,” notes Beth Robertson, senior analyst at TowerGroup. But she says rates are remarkably low and roughly half of what they were in 2001. Nonetheless, a 0.2 percent rate is still about 3.4 million payment mistakes that occur either because of customer error or some other glitch in the system, including problems stemming from billers who may switch bank accounts and fail to notify banks so they can change the routing of customer payments. Banks also may fail to cancel a recurring payment either because the request wasn’t processed in time or the customer didn’t make the change correctly on the front end.
Hmmm… 0.2 percent? Doesn’t that come to a 99.8 percent accuracy rate, exactly the rate Snark claims for King County elections?
Daniel takes his analysis further, pointing out the similarities between the types of banking errors described, and those alleged during our recent election.
So the banking systems seem to be plagued the same type of errors we’ve seen in the elections:
-customer error , much like voters who couldn’t fill out their ballots correctly, or didn’t sign them.
-glitches , not unlike voting machines that counted wrong, or lost votes, or couldn’t read valid votes marked in pencil.
-switched bank accounts , kind of like change of addresses.
-failure to cancel a recurring payment , similar to deaths that went unrecorded, and felons who were kept on the voter lists.
That’s pretty uncanny!
The article sums it up by saying, “the equation will likely never be perfect.” .
Of course, online banking isn’t the only area where errors occur in our financial system. Identity theft has become the largest category of fraud, and the fuel behind our nation’s multi-billion dollar credit card fraud racket. The banks are reluctant to release actual fraud rates, but some foreign credit cards are estimated to have rates as high as 0.47 percent! And according to Jupiter Media Metrix, worldwide credit card fraud rates range between 25 cents and 28 cents out of every $100.00 US charged online.
If King County’s election truly was 99.8 percent accurate (as the mathematically infallible Snark argues) then Ron Sims and Dean Logan have the right to be proud. Not only was it more accurate than the banking system, but it was also far more accurate than the 0.5 percent margin the Caltech/MIT Voter Technology Project recommends as the threshold for automatic recounts.
I’m not saying there isn’t room for improvement. The King County Council will be holding an open session on election reform (Monday, 9:30 AM, Council Chambers), and I encourage everybody who cares about this issue to be there. Hopefully, those attending will contribute more to the discussion than just jeers, heckles, and derisive laughter.
Yes, that bank number is true for transactional errors. However, I would bet that the error rate after corrections and reconcilliation is far lower. The .2% of KingCo election errors is after they’ve gone down the entire checklist of what could have gone wrong.
Goldy — Congratulations on a great post. You burst the hot air balloon by using their own data to make them a laughingstock.
In fact, like all balloons, this one was also burst by a prick.
Mark @1
I agree with you in principle, but by the same token, banks are allowed to (expected to) directly tie a customer to his transaction. In an election, the canvassing organization must keep the two apart, making reconciliations that much harder.
As TorridJoe and Daniel Kirkdorffer point out on their respective blogs (Also Also and On the Road to 2008), the banking system is not as error free as one might expect, and Washington state elections not quite so error prone as the righties make it out to be.
One thing that should be asked of the people who attack KC for their 99.8 accuracy rate is how did they do in college?
Did they get 99.9 percent in their classes at college? Really? That amounts to a 3.992 grade point average.
Oh, they didn’t go to college.
Ok, how about high school? Did they get a 3.992 GPA there? No?
How about college and high school attendance? Did they miss more than one class if four years of high school? If they did, they wouldn’t have made the 99.8 percent competency rate.
Thus, the cry for a better that 99.8 percent rate is a demand that not one of them could have dreamed about in their personal lives.
As far as banks go, a 99.8 percent accuracy rate means only one error every 500 transactions. Bank tellers have an error rate far higher than this either adding checks or giving change or having their ATM machine go down. Or adding an erroneous charge.
Erik @ 4
The difference is that bank errors get fixed and are audited at many levels — including the “audit” you do when you check your bank balance against your check register. In this case, the .2% error rate is after they did all the fixing they could.
Also, the elections “transactions” are much simpler than any banking transaction. Either a ballot exists or it doesn’t. Either a voter exists or s/he doesn’t. If all a bank had to do was tally if you showed up in the lobby or not, I’m sure the error rate would be FAR lower than .2%.
Me @ 5
The last line of the first paragraph should read: “In this case, KingCo’s .2% error rate is after they did all the fixing they could.”
The last line of the first paragraph should read: “In this case, KingCo’s .2% error rate is after they did all the fixing they could.”
What was your error rate in college Mark?
I thought Republicans were against fixing election errors (i.e., against recounts)? Or has their party line on that issue changed, too?
Mark @ 5
Yes, but if not for secret ballots, most of the errors uncovered in this election could be fixed too. The reason King can’t fix these errors is not due to some extra incompetence on their part (as compared to the banks) but due to the nature of elections.
So I disagree when you say an election transaction is less complicated than a banking transaction, because in elections, we can’t actually attach the voter to the ballot.
But for me, the real point here is that some errors are to be expected… they even happen in our banking system, when there is every free market incentive to achieve as close to perfection as possible (not really… but I doubt you want me to get that nuanced).
Elections sometimes fall within the margin of error. Sometimes, well within. Knowing this, the Legislature did lay out a statutory remedy for an extremely close election… a single hand recount. Gregoire won by the rules… rules that are no more arbitrary than determining the winner of an actual tie by a coin flip or a vote in the Legislature.
The fact that we can’t be certain that she really received the most votes is on its own, immaterial, as it is in all extremely close elections.
Now now, Stefan may bloviate about margins, banking systems, etc. But we all know it’s not about any of that. It’s all about getting into the Governor’s mansion after losing the election.
He, and Dino, will say anything, do anything, sue anybody to get the election overturned and get Dino in there.
Don’t forget, it was Dino and friends who SUED to prevent legal votes from being counted — back when Dino was ahead. If he (and Stefan and the dittoheads) were about counting all votes accurately, how could they possibly explain suing to stop vote counting?
Because it’s about Rossi being governor..and that’s all.
Thus, the cry for a better that 99.8 percent rate is a demand that not one of them could have dreamed about in their personal lives.
Erik @ 4
Our personal lives are not the question here. The issue is our expectations of a state/county system that exists to perform no other function but run elections. I’d bet the state lottery system has better than a 99.8 percent accuracy rate.
It appears that demanding 100% perfection in our election system is the new right-wing crowd chant after “revote” didn’t work. Anyone who thinks these people are seriously interested in election reform is kidding himself. If the final recount had put Rossi in, you wouldn’t hear anything from this bunch about election flaws. This is all about getting their way.
Don @ 12
Are you saying that if the roles were reversed, the Dems wouldn’t be doing the exact same thing? Not only would they try to dig up every vote, but they’d probably wail about some conspiracy that links President Bush to the discrepancy.
Mark @ 13
Of course they would! Both sides are doing EXACTLY what the other side would do. All this “high ground” talk is complete nonsense. The flip in the result between 1st and 2nd recount proved this…the positions of both sides flipped.
Our personal lives are not the question here. The issue is our expectations of a state/county system that exists to perform no other function but run elections
That’s exactly the point.
You have an expectation of the public sector far in excess of what you yourself has and could perform. How realistic or fair is that?
Why would you expect someone else to act far more precisely than you or the average person could?
Dealing with 2.7 millions ballots is like any other task or test.
Lets have you take the SAT or a typing test and see how you do. Lets have you work at an election department in any county or have you take some college course.
When you make the normal errors, don’t worry. Your professor or the SAT grader will understand. They have seen it before.
Right…….I understand that another 600 WASH State Democrat votes were discovered during the voting in Iraq. This clearly makes GOV Fraud the winner!! Anyone who questions this must be racist, hateful, and mean spirited! [hehe]
erik @ 15
Have you researched the error rate of the lottery? The state seems to have no problem delivering seemingly error free service there.
And don’t imply that our own personal “error rate” has anything to do with this. Take a business as an example. We don’t pretend to be perfect, we of course admit mistakes. But if we happen to make a mistake on a matter of great importance then we are sued, bankrupted, lose our customers or are damaged in some way. We don’t get to say “We promise to reform our systems, no harm no foul,” which is basically what Mr. Sims is trying to get away with. This is the reason that your personal perfection shtick has no basis to this election.
Mark @ 13, Jim @ 14
You guys are confused; we’re not Republicans, and we don’t behave like Republicans. Just because you are Republicans, and think like Republicans, doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Don @ 18
Actually, I think you do behave like Republicans — using arguments to suggest your political (and often moral) superiority with facts that fit the argument, not with the complete set of facts available.
jim @ 19
I’ve never claimed we’re morally superior to Republicans, that’s just your insecurity or guilt talking. Frankly, I think the problem is we get walked on because we don’t act enough like Republicans. To deal with thugs, you gotta become a thug. We’ve been way the hell too nice to Republicans.
Don @ 20
To deal with thugs…
Are you saying that I’m a thug?
Don @ 20
Perhaps you never did claim you are morally superior. But in toto, the feelings of the vocal left wing mirror those of the vocal right wing in such a way that leaves an independent reader with the distinct impression that each side considers itself morally superior.
Your thug comment proves the point, methinks.
The world changed in 1994 when Gingrich decided politics of division was better than politics of working together. Even Cheney acknowledged this during the 2004 campaign (saying he fondly remembered the days that he and Speaker Foley could sit down and hash out compromises).
Instead, the two parties decided compromise was weakness and coddling the extremes on either side was better. (OGingrich with *his* morally superior rantings was found out to be a person with reduced ethics).
So…both sides need to get away from the extremes and move to the center. The Rs are showing no signs of this (Rove is a master)…and the Ds with Dean soon to be in charge aren’t either.
Jim @ 22
Worse yet, both parties slam anyone that doesn’t drink the Kool-Aid as a RINO or DINO.
Personally, I would love to have an election where both candidates were of sufficiently high caliber that I’d have a hard time choosing. Instead, I find myself having to choose the lesser of two evils — even if it means crossing party lines. And both sides have their share of crazies (Craswell, Senn, etc.).
Yikes, now that bit of profundity is a little to real. It is so much easier to just dismiss the other side as extremist and not look at any of their positions as credible. As we watch in amazement the left puts the likes of Howard Dean in charge of their party as Hillary tries to move right or at least a creative makeover in that direction.
What makes this election so interesting is how a climate of encouraging more participation in the process and the too leniant registration process with no safeguards in place allows a climate of endemic influence but not organized or orchestrated fraud. Combine this with a basic understanding that the later the military ballots get sent out the less that come back on time. Since the military ballots swing counter to the party of the ones controlling the ballot mailing process it does seem like there was potential for delaying the mailing to influence the results. Can this be proven? Probably not. Did it happen? Probably. You see even if you are a true “blue” democrat you have to admit that there was potential for impressing the election one way or the other. A little influence here or there normally doesn’t matter but when the margin of victory is 129 votes out of almost 3 million cast? Now you can begin to see just an inkling of why almost 60% of the electorate do not have confidence in the election results.
I think the whole process is fascinating and I will continue to follow it closely. Will the motor voter laws be revised? Probably, but under the guise of Homeland Security issues not election reform.
Oh, and Chris…. I wouldn’t make plans for any 05 holiday galas at the mansion just yet…