Posted on 09/24/2004 9:43:01 AM PDT by FlyLow
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — More than 45 million people in 29 states and the District of Columbia are set to vote using touch-screen machines Nov. 2. But the devices once hailed as the answer to the nation's voting woes are stirring up some serious cases of buyer's remorse here and across the country.
California officials have accused the companies that make electronic voting machines of delivering shoddy equipment and are suing to get their money back. Candidates in other states seeking to overturn questionable election results have turned to the courts as well. Election reform advocates rallied in 19 states this summer, demanding that the machines be retrofitted to produce paper ballots that could be tallied in the event of a recount.
Meanwhile, computer scientists from coast to coast have warned that the machines sometimes err in counting votes and could be easily compromised by amateur hackers intent on disrupting elections. In either case, they say, a manual recount would be meaningless if it was based on corrupted electronic data.
All of this has left officials like Palm Beach County Commissioner Addie Greene wishing they hadn't rushed to spend millions of dollars on the new touch-screen machines so soon.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Oklahoma has what I think is the simplest system of electronic voting. Each office or question on a ballot has an arrow next to it. The middle of the arrow is blank. The voter uses a special pen to draw a line between the two segments of the arrow making one line that points directly to the persons name or yes/no for a question. The ballot, actually a large card, then is inserted in a special ballot box that automatically records the vote. If there is any question about the electronic count the ballots are still retained in the box for manual counting. Almost foolproof and couldn't be easier. If a person makes an error, as I did once, you declare it to the poll worker, sign an affadavit, and are issued a new ballot. It's also a lot cheaper than touchscreen computer terminals. Plus, the actual ballot is retained as a permanent record.
Oklahoma electronic voting system- yes,it works great-and helps to keep voting lines moving quickly and efficiently!
Nobody ever questioned punch-card machines until Al Gore's goons swept over Florida. I used them for 25 years and no one ever suggested they were unreliable or inaccurate.
We've used them in Shelby CO (MEMPHIS) TN for the past 2 election cycles, no problems with them or people using them. They walk you through the process.
I still prefer optically scanned ballots. They are easy to mark with a black pen (no expensive special equipment for the voting booth). Once you finish marking the ballot, it can be placed into the ballot box. It is easy to count and fast to count the ballots with a scanner. My county has a scanner for each precinct. If a scanner malfunctions, the ballots can be counted using another scanner at the court house. If a manual recount is needed, it is easy to count ballots manually.
One really important security measure optical ballots have over punch cards is that it is difficult and time consuming for someone to vote undervoted ballots double vote ballots cast for a nominee someone wants to lose. All that someone needs to invalidate a whole stack of punch card ballots cast for a candidate is to stick a wire through the correct hole for the desired (by corrupt election officials) candidate. Any ballots cast for the opponents are invalidated by the double voting while the wire goes through an already existing hole for a "correctly" cast ballot.
I don't get it. What ever happened to the traditional voting machines with the simple levers that we all grew up with. Why are those so unacceptbable these days?
You know it's gonna be bad when they're complaining about the technology six weeks out of the elections.
They are bulky and heavy, require quite a bit of space to warehouse, need labor to move back and forth from storage to precincts, and the require skilled repairmen to maintain old machines which are no longer manufactured. Compare a 1950s high end sewing machine to a 1990s model. The 1990s model replaces lots of complicated mechanical parts to control stitch pattern with microprocessor controlled motors. Those old mechanical voting machines are considerably more complex than a old sewing machines. The people who know how to fix them are not cheap, and more and more of them die each year.
Modern optically scanned ballots use current technologies many people are familiar with. The equipment is lighter and requires less space to store and fewer people to move it around. My county has one scanner per precinct where before they had anywhere from half a dozen to two dozen machines per precinct. Voting booths to mark ballots are just inexpensive dividers placed on top of tables that are used for other purposes. Once the scanner has counted the votes, and the election judges have signed off on them, the results of the entire precinct can be uploaded to the county court house in just a matter of minutes or even seconds. Newer methods of voting are less expensive, more accurate, and faster.
Thanks...
...they never seemed so cumbersome. I suppose they were.
The quick tally count thing seems to be more easily "maniuplated" however. Anytime pure electronics are involved, it's easier to rig.
With optically scanned ballots, you can always go back and recount them manually to verify they were counted correctly. Actually, quick counting is a way to prevent voting fraud. Why do you think the counies around Miami were the last ballots to be counted reported? I think they were trying to figure out how many total ballots were cast statewide to determine how many Bush ballots needed to be spoiled. I think the reason Gore lost is that they underestimated.
I think that states should require all precincts to report the number of voters who showed up at each precinct before allowing any counts to be reported on individual races. I also think undervote and overvotes should be reported with the results.
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