Let your state reps. know that Optical Scan Ballots are better than

[Eric J in MN]

punchcards and better than electronic voting machines.

An article in today's Cleveland Plains Dealer suggests that your state legislature is deciding between punchcards and eletronic voting machines ("Ohio weighs electronic, punch voting,"Monday, December 06, 2004.)
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1102329036295934.xml

In Minnesota, we use optical-scan (SAT-style) ballots, and everyone can vote within an hour.

Many people can vote at once on their respective optical-scan ballots, which speeds the line.

Optical-scan ballot are easier for the voter to check than punchcards, and cheaper than electronic voting machines.

Optical-scan ballot comply with HAVA, because they can be filled out by a blind voter with the help of the AutoMARK from Election Systems & Software:
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/products/automark.html

Please urge your state reps. to buy an optical scan ballot system.

There is contact info for Ohio state officials at:
http://www.vote-smart.org/mystate_government_resources.php?state_name=Ohio&state_code=OH&go2.x=13&go2.y=14

[shesemsmom]

1. I am perfectly happy with ours

microvote. optical scan, with a paper print out... we've had it since 94...it tamper proof and fool proof

[whistle]

2. I agree

[The Doctor.]

3. Ummmm.... aren't the 'Opti-scans' one of the machines that

report to a 'central tabulator'?

You know - the ones that gave 77% votes to Bush** in 77% Democratic counties...

Oh yeah... the 'central tabulating' software runs on Windows?

Those'r the ones you want?

[Eric J in MN]

9. They don't have to be connected to a central tabulator.

The precinct can deliver the results in person.

[Metatron]

4. Hoosier here, but wanted to mention that Optical Scan machines

had many problems in Indiana. In some districts that are now being recounted, the Optical Scan machines registered votes for Bush when the voter chose the straight Democratic ticket. In Indianapolis, ES&S completely screwed over the county and tried to add software that was uncertified - our county clerk is still debating whether to sue them or not. Personally, I wish we could go back to pen and paper. :)

[shesemsmom]

8. Indiana here to...

some of those machines are bad... Fidlar for one. But also only as good and whom ever programs the ballot. A lot of thought went into buying Mirco vote and we have only had one problem that I know of, and it was this past election night. The machine jams but the print out back up worked just fine. But it was a lot longer process than we wanted to go through, and we were holding our breath for one candidate at the time. He lost by the way. Horrible end to the suspense. I laid my head on the table to cry

[Eric J in MN]

10. Hand-countting would be bettter (NT)

NT

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Since the Die_bold machines run Access.... do you suppose they might

have a use for one of these handy dandy items?? Ya never know!

[Florida_Geek]

6. the people making the decision are

1) Wanting rigged elections

or

2) like high tech things.

In Hillsborough County (Tampa) they went with Touchscreens over Opt Scanners because 1 or 2, It was not price

The basic opt scanners would have cost HC 3,000,000. BUT the Touchscreens were 17,000,000. And goes up with the number of voters.

So why would a county spend 5-6 times the cost of opt. scanners to go with Touchscreens?

And funny the first elected official with HC touchscreens was the SOE who wanted to be Mayor of Tampa and is.

[Liberty Belle]

7. Nonsense.

Optical scanners were likely rigged in Florida and elsewhere.
While it's true that they do leave a paper trail, that's useless unless there is a recount.

Only a few states have automatic recounts in close elections. So if the Reps rig the vote to "win" by a reasonable margin, there's no recount and nobody gets to peek at the paper trail.

Also, many states force the candidate requesting a recount to pay for it, and the costs are prohibitive for many.

[Eric J in MN]

11. Optical scan-ballots with automatic hand-counts

of a percent of ballots is a better system then electronic voting machines or punch cards.

[Liberty Belle]

12. hand counts of all, or they'll just pick the non-rigged ones

[Eric J in MN]

13. I meant in every precinct,

the ballots could be shuffled, and a certain percent counted.

But I would prefer 100% hand-counting for federal races.

There are a maximum of 3 federal races per precinct, and so they could count 100 percent if they truly cared about accuracy.