[EM] Re: touch screen voting machines

David GLAUDE dglaude at gmx.net
Tue Nov 11 16:01:29 PST 2003


Eric Gorr wrote:

> At 3:19 PM -0800 11/11/03, Alex Small wrote:
> 
>> Lost in all this discussion is the incredible ease of the ballots which
>> you fill in with a pen.
> 
> People are still quite error prone with this method as well, unfortunately.
> 
> It would not be uncommon to find more then one alternative selected when 
> only one is expected...

It is not uncommon to find invalid vote... but there is no way to know 
if this was or not the intent of the voter.

> of course, along with this would likely be some 
> kind of attempt by the voter to correct the mistake which would then 
> likely end up in front of a judge.

It is very easy to provide the voter with a second chance to vote if the 
pen slipped or the voter did check the wrong oval.

Just get out, say you made a mistake and ask for another virgin ballot. 
Your mistaken ballot get counted and distroy, you get a second chance to 
vote. However we need to make sure you don't do that trick too many 
time... so no 3rd chance!

> Personally, I believe the greatest opportunity for error proof voting is 
> use computer based voting.

Error proof is not the goal. Democracy is the goal (but I might be wrong 
on that one).

David GLAUDE







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