[EM] Voting Machines

[Bart Ingles]

I could be wrong, but I think that in the recent Florida uproar the
number of disallowed ballots was considerably lower than 3.78%. 
Probably more in the 2% range.  Of course a 2% margin of error is not
much comfort when the margin of victory is only around 0.01%.

Bart



LAYTON Craig wrote:
> 
> I'm at a loss as to why you would bother with voting machines at all.
> What's wrong with hand written, hand counted ballots?  I'm not sure how this
> compares to US figures, but the last Australian Federal election had an
> informal vote of 3.78%.  That is, 3.78% of votes cast were not counted,
> because they were blank, were illegible, or didn't qualify in some other
> way.  This is despite the compulsory numbering of all candidates, hand
> written ballots and compulsory voting, which means that less educated voters
> turn up in higher numbers (94.99% of registered voters voted in the last
> election).  The problems with the hand counting in Florida stemmed from the
> fact that the voting was done with a voting machine.  Voters should be given
> more credit - it is usually pretty easy to tell with a hand written ballot
> how the voter intended voting.  I guess I'm an abacus & gas lamp kind of
> guy, so it just seems like a waste of money to me.