I completely agree! (I was only pointing out that the "electronic"
machines we have do work, even if they are pretty well kluged up.) The
previous system was a very simple system using optical scanning of a
simple marked paper ballot. It produced the original voter-marked
ballot, a tape count, and a "data pack" of some proprietary nature about
as big as the proverbial "pack of cigarettes". It worked with 100%
accuracy, was very easy for both voters and poll workers, very quick to
count votes, and was quite inexpensive. Even if the power failed, we
would have just accumulated the paper ballots and run them through the
machine or hand counted them later. But we were forced by congressional
legislation to abandon them in favor of the new "electronic" machines.
Even at this time, the state legislature is considering getting rid of
the electronic machines (fortunately, our county election board was wise
enough not to dispose of the old machines, just in case...) It was also
much, much easier to deal with "write in" votes, as the electronic
machines require typing in write-in vote using a touch screen "keyboard"
that would create horrible back-ups in voting if a serious write-in
campaign were to occur. (The optical system looks for any marking in the
"write-in" area and dumps those ballots into a separate bin for hand
counting.) I don't have the name of the mark sense machines, but they
were truly "bulletproof" in every way.
Mike
Mike
db wrote:
Mike ...Thanks for the informed details re: the computer voting machine
that I was wondering about.
I am a tech professional but I LOVE any type of system that does it's
job extremely well with elegant simplicity, minimal overhead and low
cost regardless of the tech involved.
To me those qualities, define good functional design. In the tech
field I think we often use computers unnecessarily to "reinvent the
wheel" and the motivation for doing so is a combination of myopic tech
fascination and the $ to be gained.
The computer voting machines you describe, seem unnecessarily fraught
with unwieldy power cords, battery overhead issues, various paper roll
issues, hacking security and storage liabilities and unnecessary cost
issues. The KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) should apply here me
thinks.
All in all, it seems like a ballot machine like DataVote, that Tom and
Alvin had used and I found reference to, is the way to go. Bring back
IBM punchcards!! :)
db
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