A word about my state's voting machines.

[Floogeldy]

We fill in paper ballots with a black ink felt pen (completing the arrow pointing to the name of the candidate we are voting for) and feed it into a machine. The computer reads the votes. In my opinion, this was the pinnacle of voting technology: Computer read votes with a paper trail.

I'm not a reactionary but every state should adopt this potentially crude (never been a problem), but verifiable, voting technology.

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[Eric J in MN]

1. Federal election ballots should be hand-counted.

There are a maximum of 3 federal races per election per precinct (US president, Senator, Congressperson.)

It wouldn't be too difficult.

Canada uses hand-counting for federal elections.

There could be a separate local ballot for local races.

[eridani]

4. Precinct opscan works better than hand counting when--

--you get above 2 races. For a single race, handcounting is the gold standard.

[Eric J in MN]

6. Better as in faster? Public hand-counting is more trustworthy. NT

NT

[eridani]

7. Better as in more accurate

Hand counting is the gold standard only for single races.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Professionals agree w/you - it's called precinct based

optical scanning. Precinct based is important - it prevents under and overvotes from spoiling ballots.

[Floogeldy]

3. Thanks for that elucidation.

Yes, the actual machines are in every precinct. :)

[pansypoo53219]

5. we do the same, except

we use #2 with no erasers.