Chads on the way out, but paperless voting may also....

[Rjnerd]

Mixed article, gets the point about the lack of paper trail with electronic technology, but then says "optical scan not yet widely" like its something new and rare, rather than decades old, and judged the most accurate available. Finishes with some somewhat fawning quotes by Blackwell (Ohio election superviosor)

Seems to not getting much attention, doesn't show up despite high rating... (dropped off the page I found it on)


Chads" on the way out, but paperless voting may also bring troubles

2 hours, 35 minutes ago U.S. National - AFP



WASHINGTON (AFP) - Punch card voting machines that caused chaos in the 2000 presidential election have been replaced by high-tech touch screen balloting in some places, but critics warn the new technology could cause even greater mayhem.
<snip>
About 20 percent of US voters now have touch-screen or other electronic machines, and estimates are that as many as 50 million may be using the new technology in next month's election.

But opponents said paperless voting is fraught with the potential for fraud and mistakes. Critics worry that unscrupulous officials could steal an election, or that hackers could create election mayhem for fun. Forbes magazine called paperless voting a "worst technology" of 2003, and legislation has been introduced in Congress against it.
<snip>
Some election watchers are urging the use of a modified version of the technology, which use optical scanning machines to register ballots. The technology, not yet widely in use, works in a similar way to photocopiers. The machines register a voters pencil mark on the ballot by the amount of light it absorbs, and provides a record of ballots cast, prompting Alexander to call the technology "the best of both worlds."


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1506&ncid=696&e=10&u=/afp/20041023/ts_alt_afp/us_vote_machines

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Optical scanners rock.....

Simple and effective. Draw an oval with a pen and feed it into the counter.

[Eric J in MN]

2. hand counting is the best.

Optical-scan ballots better system than other MACHINE counts, but if the machine is programmed wrong, the results are wrong.

That is why hand-counting the ballots is the best system.

[Steelangel]

3. Agreed!

[Liberal Veteran]

4. True, but at least with optical scanners, cheating can be easily caught.

Because you can hand count the ballots.

Even the old punch cards can be misprogrammed, but like the optical scanners, the paper trail makes it hard to get away with fraud.