Liberal candidate Gisele Kapterian has appealed her narrow loss to Nicolette Boele in Bradfield to the court of disputed returns. According to Professor Anne Twomey, no questions of law are raised in Kapterian’s challenge. Rather, the court is being asked to determine more mundane questions. Is that 1 actually a 7; is that 6 an 8? and so on.
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The last time the courts considered questions about ballot formality was in 2007 from the seat of McEwen. The resulting federal court case produced one of the more unusual judgments one will find in Australian law reports. Mitchell v Bailey (No 2) ****contains a lengthy tabular schedule, listing the disposition of 643 reserved ballots and – in 153 instances – reasons for Justice Richard Tracey’s assessments about ballot formality differing from those of the AEC. Examples include comments such as “Notations reasonably resemble numbers. In particular, three of them can be recognised as figures 7, 6, 5.” Why? How? Presumably, they just did to Tracey, just as they did not to AEC officials. No criticism of the late justice is intended; the point is to highlight just how subjective and hence seemingly unfair these assessments – and election outcomes – can appear.
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Here’s a modest proposal. For decades we’ve been training computers to recognise handwritten digits, principally for making mail processing and delivery more efficient. Massive datasets of real, handwritten digits have become one of the touchstones of machine learning, test beds for refining algorithms and global competition among researchers. The best algorithms have 99.82% accuracy in recognising digits. And the AEC itself uses digital scanning to process Senate ballot papers.
eureka@aussie.zone 4 days ago
Thanks for that little extra in the title.
Machine learning (well, more specifically, the marketing term “AI”) has a bad reputation. It’s a tool. And we’re so used to seeing that tool wildly abused that it’s hard not to have an instinctual reaction whenever it appears in the media. But recognising writing and text is one of the legitimately reasonable uses of the tool, so long as it’s done properly and not misunderstood as an objective replacement for humans - it may have better accuracy that a typical person but still it’s not objective and its training data will inevitably have limitations.
It consistently amazes me on the level of inability people have when it comes to simple tasks like filling in a ballot.
Now, I understand that I have advantages that not everyone has, like over a decade of local school experience filling exams, so I shouldn’t consider what’s natural and obvious to me to be universal expected knowledge. But at some point, the government and AEC should just have a mandatory 30 minute voting test when you enroll, so you have no excuse not to know how to print numbers clearly (hell, teach us about
7and other good habits), so you know how to read simple English voting instructions or know how to ask for assistance if you’re unable for any reason.Robust_Mirror@aussie.zone 4 days ago
A test when you’re 18 that lasts the rest of your life? Can’t account for future injuries, disability (including those that only happened after testing), old age, or just general annoyance over being at the polling centre and apathy over filling it out well? It’s not going to solve anything.
Anyone can show they can print numbers once off. And what happens if they can’t pass? Are they barred from voting? That’s risky for both the reason of discrimination AND people intentionally failing. Take a mandatory number writing course? For how long? What if someone indefinitely fails?
Unless these people literally didn’t make it to year 6 they’ve already shown they CAN write numbers, read basic instructions and ask someone for help. That doesn’t mean they will always be able to, or always want to.
It won’t meaningfully reduce the number of ambiguous ballots.
eureka@aussie.zone 3 days ago
Good criticism, I didn’t think that part through. Once every 3 or 4 years is probably to often. Somewhere in the middle would be ideal.
And the bottom line is that many people will just be in a hurry, stressed or tired. But I hope that this kind of thing would improve instinct and build habits that would reduce the impact of those inevitable factors.
Try again until they pass. Not registered until they pass. The test allows all the assistance that one would receive in a polling centre.
What’s the point of letting someone in the polling booth if they can’t fill out the ballot in ideal conditions? It’s not empowering them, it’s just compromising the democratic process.
I claim that if someone is unable to pass this test, their vote wouldn’t have counted anyway. It’s only as discriminatory as the election itself is.
That, and plenty of other edge cases too. There are a surprising amount of people who made it through school and remained illiterate or innumerate (I can’t easily find stats).
It’s perfectly valid to nullify your vote. What disturbs me is how many people seem to unintentionally cast an invalid vote despite wanting to vote. It points me to suspect a systematic issue beyond just apathy.
Tenderizer@aussie.zone 3 days ago
We collectively need to stop using “AI” to refer to “generative AI”. Specialized AI, or rather machine learning, can be extremely useful.
DavidDoesLemmy@aussie.zone 3 days ago
AI is an umbrella term that covers many things. Why would we stop using it?