The World Almanac and Book of Facts 2004 eBay for Dummies Fixing Elections: The Failure of America's Winner-Take-All Politics Too Close to Call : The Thirty-Six-Day Battle to Decide the 2000 Election Trial and Error: The Education of a Courtroom Lawyer Statistics and the Law The Miami Herald Report: Democracy Held Hostage The Unfinished Election of 2000 Deadlock: The Inside Story oF America's Closest Election

• With punch cards outlawed, officials ponder expense .
• MUNCIE - Delaware County officials and state legislators will meet next week to begin what is likely to be an expensive task: replacing the county's punch-card voting system. ...
• Concerns about the punch-card system - in which a stylus is used to punch chads from ballots - were prompted by November's confusing and bitter legal battle over presidential ballots in Florida. ...
• The Indiana General Assembly this year decreed that punch-card ballots should not be used after 2004 elections. ...
• Punch cards or lever voting machines are used in more than a third of Indiana's 92 counties. ...
• County Clerk Karen Wenger has said the lack of trouble locally is attributed to regular maintenance of voting machines. ...
• The Legislature earmarked $4 million to help counties switch to one of two voting systems approved by the state: an optical scan, in which ballots marked with pens are recorded with a computerized scanner, or direct vote recording, in which voters push buttons or touch areas on a computer screen.
• The estimated cost to switch Delaware County's 100 voting precincts to the optical scan system is $750,000. ...
• Craycraft said he was aware Delaware County "had not really experienced a problem with punch cards. ...

• "Voting machines remind us that voting, like the democracy it reflects, is large and clumsy.
•           Lever pull machines such as the Myers Automated Booth were the primary mechanized voting devices in the United States for the first half of the twentieth century. ... When the voter pulls a lever to open a curtain upon exit, it causes votes to be recorded by a mechanical counter behind each voting lever and the levers to be automatically reset. ... 5  Advantages of lever pull machines are that votes are automatically tabulated and that voters can easily correct voting mistakes while still in the booth. ...
• Punch Card Machines.
•           There are several antecedents to the punch card machines that caused Florida so much trouble in November 2000.  Punch card technology was first used by an early nineteenth century French inventor named Joseph-Marie Jacquard to control the movements of his textile looms. ... 8  Hollerith's punch cards were first officially used to collect information for the 1890 national census. ... 10  For the next half-century, Americans used punch cards in a wide array of areas, including insurance records, railroads companies, libraries, and payrolls. ... Harris, a professor at the University of California-Berkeley, adapted the punch card for voting in the 1960s with the help of William Rouveral, an engineering professor. ... Coyle was pairing punch cards with new computer technology for local elections in Ohio. 13  IBM purchased patent rights to Harris's punch card device in 1965, calling it the IBM Votomatic. 14  Ironically, radical 1960s student protesters at UC-Berkeley adopted the punch card as a symbol for the depersonalization of American society, wearing signs that read "I am UC student. ... "15  The punch card machine was first used officially in 1965 in Fulton and DeKalb Counties, Georgia. 16    The punch card required the use of a stylus to punch out a numbered chad which corresponds to a specific candidate or issue.  Advantages of the punch card method is the low amount of initial investment, but the disadvantages of these machines are more often expressed.

• Election Automation -- Types of computerized voting systems.
• In this section we examine the three main types of computerised voting systems in current use--punch card, mark-sense, and direct recording electronic machines. ...
• Punch Card .
• Punch card voting systems require voters to mark their ballots by punching holes in paper cards. The punch cards can be fed into computerised counting machines either at the local precincts or at centralised tallying facilities. Punch card voting systems have been in use since the mid 1960s. ...
• There are two types of punch cards in common use: "votomatic" cards and "datavote" cards. Both are rectangular cards that are generally oriented with the long edges on the sides and the short edges on the top and bottom. ...
• The names of the candidates and ballot initiatives are generally printed in a hinged instruction booklet that is attached to a mechanical holder into which voters insert their ballots for voting. ... As voters read the ballot questions, they use a stylus to punch holes at the locations corresponding to their choices. Absentee voters generally have to identify the appropriate locations to punch by number, as they do not have a mechanical holder available to them when they vote. ...
• Voters use a stylus or a special holder and punching tool to punch holes in boxes printed next to the ballot choices. ... In these cases, multiple cards must be used. Votomatic cards, on the other hand, usually contain enough ballot locations to accommodate a ballot with many questions and candidates on a single card. Datavote cards can generally accommodate write-in votes directly on the card, while votomatic cards require write-in votes to be recorded somewhere else, usually on a ballot envelope. ...
• The older punch card systems (both votomatic and datavote) use prescored cards that make them easier for voters to punch. ... The bits of paper that are removed when a card is punched, called chad, often do not become completely detached from their cards when prescored cards are used. ... Or, when severed from their cards as ballots are handled, they may work their way into holes punched in other ballots. Newer punch card systems use cards that are not prescored. Instead they generally take advantage of special spring-loaded styluses that allow voters to punch unscored cards with ease. ...

• Internet Voting.
• INTERNET VOTING.
• As a technologist, I’m intrigued by the continued use of punch cards as the preferred method of collecting and analyzing what could arguably be deemed our most precious and critical national data. ... And yet, when it comes to our sacred election process, we are still relying on punch card technology that dates back to the turn of the century—the previous century, that is. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the standard punch card was first used by the New York City Board of Health for tabulation of vital statistics. Punch cards were later used in the 1890 census. Punch cards have been used for many things over the past decades, but one of the last important uses of was for voting. According to Douglas Jones, Associate Professor at The University of Iowa Department of Computer Science and author of Punched Cards: A brief technical history, “ The use of pre-scored punched card ballots was introduced in the 1960s, and despite problems in the 1968 general election in Detroit, where a sudden rainstorm drenched at least one load of ballots in transit from a polling place to the counting center, this format quickly grew to become the most widely used computer-based election technology. ...
• The first election that utilized Internet voting occurred on March 7, 2000 when Arizona residents logged in to election. ...
• One of the commonly voiced concerns regarding Internet voting is whether or not it is secure. ... The report further concluded that, “Internet voting poses serious security risks. We recommend a delay on Internet voting until suitable criteria for security are in place. ” While there are many security products and standards in place that can go a long way toward making Internet voting secure, it is important to note that security, whether digital or physical, is a process not a product. I would argue that with the right combination of products and processes, Internet voting would be far more accurate and secure than traditional paper-based voting.
• Slate columnist James Ledbetter summed this issue up well when he wrote, “Internet voting is not intrinsically discriminatory, because adding convenience for wired voters is not necessarily the same as denying convenience for the unwired. ” Detractors argue that Internet voting would make voting easier for the “haves” but do little for the “have-nots” (i. ... , those who are too poor to afford a computer and Internet service in their home), resulting in unequal access to voting and violation of election laws. With that in mind, Internet voting may not be a viable option until we’ve narrowed the “digital divide” and ensured that every voter, rather than just some voters, have a voice.

• Judges, Experts Clash Over Punch-Card System .
• Thursday, September 18, 2003 By William La Jeunesse LOS ANGELES — Punch-card voting may be old-fashioned, but it may not be as detrimental to the vote count as opponents would allege, say some elections experts.
• The punch card, with its recognizable "dimpled," "hanging" and "pregnant" chads, has been badly maligned since the 2000 Florida recount dispute, most recently in a decision by a three-judge panel on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. ...
• But elections expert Larry Sabato (search) told Fox News that the judges were remiss in claiming that punch-card machines were inferior to every other type of machine. ...
• "The court was completely wrong in saying punch cards are 'almost undisputed as the most error-prone type of voting machine,'" said Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics (search). ...
• According to the California ACLU, punch-card machines, still used in six counties, have an error rate of 2. ... In their argument before the court last week, the group argued that because those six counties, which make up 44 percent of the state's voting population, are also 46 percent minority-populated, black and Latino voters will be underrepresented. ...
• But other state voting methods that the ACLU finds acceptable are also prone to error, researchers point out. ...
• Computer touch screens with an error rate of 3 percent could leave 48,000 votes uncounted, and 'Datavote,' a different type of punch-card system used in 20 counties, has an error rate of more than 3 percent — putting as many as 51,200 votes at risk. ...
• Punch cards aren't perfect, but according to research at Cal-Tech and MIT, neither is anything else. ...
• In justifying their ruling, the 9th Circuit judges cite a remark made by California's former Secretary of State Bill Jones, who allegedly said that the punch-card system is "unacceptable. ...
• The judges also claimed punch cards are so unreliable that in 1984, San Joaquin County had to "eliminate the votes of an entire precinct. ...

• TITLE: VOTING SIMULATION AUTHOR: Kathy L. ... OVERVIEW: Young people have a natural curiosity about the adult process of voting. ... PURPOSE: The purpose of this lesson is to help students become aware of the rights and responsibilities of voting. ... RESOURCES/MATERIALS: From the County Clerk's Office obtain current voter's pamphlets, poll books, and voting booths with punch cards. Teachers, students, and/or volunteers make up a voter registration card, booklet for voting booth, and box for depositing ballots. ... Have the class make up a booklet to be used in the voting booth with the punch cards County Clerk's office cannot give out official voting booklets, voting booths need to be used at least one week prior to actual election date . ...

• Take electronic voting, for example. In 2000, it sure looked like the old voting systems - punch cards, hanging chads, all that - were desperately in need of upgrading. It seemed pretty obvious that electronic voting systems would have avoided the whole Florida ballot controversy. ... They can drive the Nasdaq to 5,000, but we're still voting with punch cards?!" .
• Then came last Sunday's New York Times, which presented a terrifying report on Diebold, a leading maker of paperless touch-screen voting machines. ...
• O'Dell wouldn't and couldn't go so far as to program his voting machines to deliver the next election to Mr. ...
• There's no paper trail, no "voting receipts. ...
• Holt, who's trying to make electronic voting more transparent: "Someone said to me the other day, 'We've had these electronic voting machines for several years now, and we've never had a problem. ...
• org) told me that this kind of thing - casual, uninspected software updates to voting machines that have already been certified - goes on all the time. ...
• The bottom line: Diebold's voting machines appear to present an undetectable, easy and tempting target for manipulating elections. ...
• See what I mean? Even electronic voting turns out to be a gray area. ...

• VOTING: WHAT IS, WHAT COULD BE.
• Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project .
• 5 million presidential votes were not recorded in 2000 because of difficulties using voting equipment. ...
• There are five types of voting equipment: hand-counted paper, mechanical lever machines, punch card ballots, optically scanned paper, and electronic voting machines. ...
• Punch cards have the highest rate of unmarked, uncounted, and spoiled ballots over the last four presidential elections. ...
• Absentee Voting.
• Over a fifteen to twenty year span, the cost of acquiring and operating either an optically scanned ballot system or an electronic voting system is approximately the same, about $2 per voter per year. ...
• We recommend replacing punch cards, lever machines, and older electronic machines with optical scanned ballot systems, or any electronic voting system proven to perform similarly well in extensive field tests. ...
• Problems with voter registration can be a barrier to voting and can create lines at polling places. ...
• We recommend use of early voting instead of absentee voting on demand. ...
• Remote Internet voting poses serious security risks. We recommend a delay on Internet voting until suitable criteria for security are in place. ...
• Electronic voting will change how we vote in the near future. To capture the full potential of electronic voting, a substantial change in the development and evaluation of equipment is required. ...
• We recommend that this platform consist of modular voting equipment, which allows for the separate development of equipment for generating votes and of equipment for casting and for counting votes. ...
• Many election officers know little about voting systems used elsewhere in the country. ...

• Harris County switching to electronic voting system.
• 5, they will find that choosing their candidates will no longer involve perforating a punch card.
• Voting has gone high tech as punch cards are being replaced with one inch thick, 5. ...
• Harris County will be the first Texas county and the largest one in the country to completely switch to an electronic voting system.
• The change was made after county officials realized their 20-year-old punch card system had become obsolete.
• "Our principal concern was that we were going to be outgrowing the ballot capacity for the punch card system. ...
• After a three year search, a task force last year chose an electronic voting system manufactured by Austin-based Hart InterCivic.
• The cost for the new voting system, which included software, training and technical support, was about $25 million.
• When people enter the voting booth, they will find a legal pad-sized device with a color screen.
• After choosing a language, either English or Spanish, and entering a randomly selected four-digit code given upon check-in, voting can begin. ...
• The votes cast on the machines are stored inside them, as well as in memory cards and in another machine that serves as an electronic precinct manager. The data will be tabulated from the sealed cards at a central location.
• Tarrant and Travis counties have used the same type of machine during early voting. Dallas, El Paso and Guadalupe counties have used touch screens during early voting.
• Around the country, more counties are switching to some type of electronic voting system in the wake of the Florida election fiasco during the 2000 presidential election.
• Next month, 510 counties are expected to use electronic voting systems, according to Election Data Services, a Washington, D. ...

•   Punched cards!  I thought I had seen my last punched card 15 years ago. ...
•   It went in on punched cards. ...
• My first few months of computing were spent getting acquainted with those cards. ...   By punching holes in a column using a mechanical hand punch, you caused that column to have a meaning.   I have punched 2,000-line COBOL progams on the hand punch, each line a card with 40 or 50 columns punched—close to a hundred thousand downward jabs on the key pad. ...
• Having punched your program onto a stack of several hundred cards, you took them to the computer room and delivered them to an operator, praying that he would not drop them (a computer program only works if its instructions are executed in the right order). ...
•   You and I may spend our free time surfing the Web; in Florida they are punching holes in Hollerith cards and feeding them into card readers—face down, 9 edge first, one hopes.   The card readers in turn send the data on the cards to mainframe systems, to be processed by programs written, in some cases, back when I was whanging away at the hand punch. ...
• Why are voting systems so antiquated?  Of Florida's 67 counties, 27 used punched-card systems, 37 use the only slightly more advanced "mark-sense" cards developed in the 1960s, 2 still have mechanical voting machines and one relies entirely on manual counting. ...
• There is a monthly newsletter called The Bell dedicated to the promotion of voting by Internet.   In the spring of this year they surveyed Florida voting systems.   One typical response to their queries came from the Supervisor of Elections for Tampa’s Hillsborough County, which currently uses punched cards:  " The Supervisor favors a touch screen system. ...   Changing voting systems is a huge undertaking. ... Would like to change voting systems in the next 5 to 6 years. ...
•   Maryland state law, for example, requires counties to purchase computerized voting machines. ...
• How difficult would it be for a programmer at one of the big voting-system vendors to corrupt an election?  Not difficult at all. ...   The vendors frequently supply not only the software and hardware, but also the printed ballots, advice on voting procedures, maintenance and other services. ...   With punched or marked cards there is at least some physical evidence of how the votes were cast. ...

• It's not about the punch cards.
• Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled Monday that the very "punch-card" ballots that were good enough to elect Gray Davis governor in November aren't good enough to be used in an election that might recall him. ...
• Constitution because six counties representing 44 percent of the voters would use punch-card ballots, which are deemed less reliable than other ballots. The ruling noted that "the affected counties contain a significantly higher percentage of minorities than the other counties" and cited a study that found that minority voters had more problems voting using punch cards than white, non-Hispanic voters. ...
• The panel ruled that the recall election should be postponed until March 2, 2004, when all counties should have replaced their punch-card systems. The judges also noted that former California Secretary of State Bill Jones, a Republican, "officially" deemed punch cards to be "unacceptable. ...
• The ACLU and other organizations sued the state to dump punch-card ballots more quickly. ...
• "If I had thought these systems were so egregious, I would not have" suggested keeping punch cards until 2006, said Jones. He asked: If the ACLU believed that punch-card ballots disenfranchised voters, "why didn't they appeal that decision" for the 2002 elections? .
• The answer: As far as I'm concerned, the issue wasn't replacing the punch cards. ...
• As UCLA law professor Daniel Lowenstein noted, "There are many elections scheduled for November 2003, including a recall election in the city of Lynwood" (which lies in one of the six counties, Los Angeles) "and I'm not aware of anyone who's objected to the use of punch-card ballots in those systems. ...
• Elections attorney Chip Nielsen warned that the replacement ballot systems could be worse than punch cards -- because voters and registrars aren't familiar with them. Lowenstein agreed that the new ballot systems could be as problematic as punch cards. ...
• On the very first paragraph of the 66-page ruling, the Ninth Circuit judges misquoted Bill Jones, who never said the punch-card system was "unacceptable. ... ) They took a decades-old voting mechanism that helped elect the presidents who appointed them and decided that it was so unreliable as to justify their decision to postpone a scheduled election in which some citizens already had voted. ...
• If punch ballots are so "unacceptable," they should recuse themselves, having won their place on the bench through such a discredited system. ...

• As far back as 1984, a panel of the National Clearinghouse of the Federal Election Commission pointed at the "need to look at related human engineering standards for voting devices ; panelists stated that neither the manufacturer of voting systems nor most state and local election offices pay much attention to how the voter interacts with the various voting devices. ... " However, "subsequent federal guidelines produced for evaluating voting systems, while comprehensive in other areas, did not address the panel's concerns" about clear, readable, non-confusing ballots, wrote Susan King Roth, Chairperson of the department that covers visual communication design at The Ohio State University, and one of the few information design scientists who have studied the communication aspects of ballots. ...
• Another startling finding was that some of the reading areas for the voting machines where actually too high above the eye level for a substantial number of voters to even see the issues presented for them to decide!.
• RESEARCH ON PUNCH CARD BALLOTS.
• In a second study, Roth put the punch card voting format -- similar to the type of punch card used in Palm Beach and many other jurisdictions -- to the test. The error rate on the punch cards was approx. ... " The punch card format was "disliked by the majority of subjects" because it was difficult to read. As if looking into a crystal ball in a concluding remark in her study, Roth wrote, "does this imply that previous election results can be challenged by losing parties? Can public confidence in the voting process be maintained if problems with voting systems are published in the media?".
• Nature (408, 665-666; 2000) on December 7, 2000, published the results of a study by Robert Sinclair and colleagues of the University of Alberta which reported that Canadian shoppers made mistakes using the Butterflly ballot in a simulated voting experiment for a Canadian prime minister. Their results: Of 53 people using the double-column butterfly ballot, four made mistakes; three of these involved voting for the candidate in the wrong column. ...
• On the other hand, even if we do get new voting machines, how the information is displayed on the machines is still an important factor. And, if the voting is done on a computer screen, we should have a (pop-up) dialogue box which appears that says, "Here is the candidate you chose. ...

• New Evidence of Voting Equipment Disparities in Georgia Counties .
• Current Error-Prone Voting Systems Affect All Voters.
• A new study of 2000 election data released February 1 by the Southern Regional Council, based on data from the Georgia Secretary of State's office, yields fresh evidence of racial disparities in voting systems used in Georgia, giving added weight to the call for uniform voting standards across the state.
• Despite previously released reports that indicated that the different technologies performed with similar rates of effectiveness, the SRC study shows substantial differences depending on the voting system used. ... The punch card system, used in 17 Georgia counties by 30. ... 51 percent, well below the punch card rate. ...
• Black voters in Georgia were almost two times more likely than white voters to live in counties that use the most error-prone voting machinery. ... 23 percent) of Georgia's black voters live in punch card counties while less than one-quarter (24. 73 percent) of Georgia's white voters live in punch card counties. ... 53 percent) in Georgia used the optical scan method of voting. ...
• Gore voters were more likely than Bush voters to use the less reliable punch card systems.
• 690,982 white registered voters and 453,838 black registered voters use the punch card system that puts Georgia voters at the greatest risk of disfranchisement. ... As many as 39,090 Presidential votes were uncounted in the counties using that system, a larger absolute number than were uncounted using the punch system (38,462).
• This data calls for action to adequately fund voting machinery that serves all communities equally," says SRC Associate Director Ellen Spears. ...
• The SRC's eighty-year history includes a vigorous commitment to voting reform, including the founding of the Voter Education Project, which registered more than two million black voters in the South during the 1960s and 70s. ...
• In Georgia, black voters are more likely than white voters to vote in counties with the least reliable voting equipment-punch cards. ...

• Study: Paper voting better than computers.
• voting systems finds that long-used methods of casting votes like paper ballots, optical scanning devices and lever machines are more dependable than electronic means like punch card and cash-machine-like systems. ...
• The new study from the California Institute of Technology/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Voting Project focuses on the number of undervotes and overvotes, which make a category of votes called residual votes. ...
• Is Internet voting a threat to privacy?.
• Electronic voting systems face obstacles to adoption.
• Unisys, Microsoft, Dell to create new voting system.
• More technology-intensive voting systems like punch cards and ATM (automatic teller machine)-like systems have a 3 percent residual vote count, the study finds. ...
• Talking with people who are knowledgeable about voting has led to the conclusion that the comfort level with technology has something to do with the slightly higher residual vote count, said Charles Stewart, a professor of political science at MIT, who is part of the approximately dozen people working on the study. ...
• The findings of the Caltech/MIT Voting Project have been submitted to the task force studying the election procedures in Florida. ... Vest created the Voting Project in December in the hope of avoiding future vote problems that occurred in the 2000 U. ...
• Electronic voting is still in its infancy. ... voting population in 1980 voted by some electronic means. During last year's election, approximately 11 percent of the voting population voted electronically, he said. ...
• "It is the fastest growing part (of new voting technology). ...
• The Caltech/MIT Voting Project team hopes to have some pretty definitive answers on the efficiencies of the existing voting technologies by June, Stewart said. Project members hope to work with engineers to develop new voting technology that is robust and yet practical, he said. ...

• Everybody knows that the voting machines in Florida left us with thousands of ballots on which people voted for two candidates for the same office, erroneously voted for the wrong candidate or left vote counters baffled when they dimpled a chad or left one hanging by two or maybe three corners. ...
• Machines that read punch cards or scan sheets on which the voters have filled in a circle will make mistakes; the cards can be wrongly or imperfectly punched, and the circles can be filled with a check or some other misleading mark.
• Machines that read punch cards will often be unable to decide whether the chad has been completely punched out, and hand counts of punch cards will be as subjective as hand counts of paper ballots. ...
•   Mischelle Townsend, the county registrar of voters,  has installed an electronic voting system that makes it next to impossible for people to vote for the wrong candidate and completely impossible for them to vote for two candidates for the same office. ...
• Manufactured by Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment of Exeter, Calif. ...
• No election worker ever needs to stare at a chad to see if it is hanging by one corner or two or three or worry whether a dimple in the middle of a punch-card slot means the voter tried to vote there. ...
• If there is a power failure, batteries installed in each voting machine back up the results for three hours; if the power failure continues, new backup batteries can be installed. ...

• Utah promises touch-screens at each voting site .
•       In a move that signals the beginning of the end for traditional — and some say untrustworthy — punch-card voting systems in Utah, the state plans to have at least one touch-screen voting machine installed at every single polling precinct by the fall of 2004.
•       The State Plan Committee on Election Reform has amended the Utah's timetable to reflect this conversion goal and wants all remaining punch-card machines replaced by November 2006.
•       Punch cards have been much in the news of late, their continued use in some California counties offering one reason for proposed delays in that state's controversial gubernatorial recall election, set for Tuesday. ...
• The act includes a mandate for each precinct to have specially designed machines to facilitate voting by people with disabilities.
•       Walker said that while there is sentiment among some government officials to wait an extra year on electronic voting, "I'm a little concerned about waiting too long. ...
•       Still more issues include possible overtime pay for county employees, who may be involved with the training, installation and operating processes, and the possibility of early voting, being promoted by Walker. ...

•  • How E-Voting Will Work.
• How E-Voting Will Work.
• Point and Click Voting.
• And one of those tasks is voting. As the 2000 election plays out, many political pundits and techies argue that electronic voting, or e-voting, will prevent a lot of the problems that have put the presidential election on hold. The advantages of e-voting include: .
• Streamlining the voting process. ...
• Most voters already use some sort of computerized voting system. Punch cards, like the ones used in the disputed Palm Beach County, Fla. ... This form of voting has been used since the 1960s. Optical scanners are used for those voting systems that use paper and pen, to detect pen marks made on a ballot. Optical scan vote counters are not as old as punch card technology, but they seem somewhat archaic compared to other technologies that we use everyday. For many, e-voting is the next logical step for elections. ...
• In the punch card system, if you feed the same 100 ballots through the counting machine seven times, you get seven different vote counts. ... There are two e-voting technologies available that could streamline this process, and make counting ballots as easy as hitting a key on a computer keyboard. ...
• Using these machines, voters gather at their traditional voting precinct and cast their ballots in a kiosk, just like the one they have always used. ... Voters carry in a cartridge and place it in the e-voting computer, which displays the candidates on a touch-screen, liquid-crystal display. ...

• For many years, I've voted with the punch cards used in Santa Clara County, California. ... I am then handed a punch card ballot. It's in three parts: a punch card region, a write-in region, and a numbered ballot stub. I then insert the punch card region (still attached) into the punch card station, and punch the ballot using the stylus for all the votes. ...
• Once I have completed voting my ballot, I then hand it to the clerk, who removes the numbered stub and hands that to me. ...
• The voter votes on the voting machine and checks the vote on the computer. ... The voting machine prints on the blank ballot stock. ...
• There is more risk of jamming with this approach, but much better control over the voting stock to eliminate multiple votes from the same person or use of substitute ballot stock. ...

• Next election could include tests of online voting .
• military is running a similar trial today with 250 voters stationed overseas voting on certified virus-free machines at military bases. ...
• Current voting systems in Georgia.
• Punch cards. ...
• Voting machines. ...
• The plan here is to test computer technology in place of traditional voting machines, punch cards and paper-ballot scanners. Personal computers with on-screen ballots would be installed in voting booths connected via a state-operated secure telephone network to instantly transmit results.
• If successful, proponents hope to eventually work out the bugs that currently make online voting from home questionable. ...
• But at least one critic fears electronic voting from home or work could actually discourage people from casting ballots.
• "I have a bad feeling that online voting, unlike what some proponents are saying that it will somehow boost turnout, that it will dispel that ritual of voting," said Hans A. von Spakovsky, executive director of the Atlanta-based Voting Integrity Project.
• Committee members are also looking at how to maintain security and privacy, two issues critical to any form of voting but more troubling with computerized systems. ...
• Advocates of online voting say the concept isn't a radical change but rather a refinement of the existing practice of absentee ballots, which offer convenience, can be completed anywhere, and are filed out of direct supervision of elections officials.
• "There is a lot of appeal in online voting, but I'd say it's on the distant horizon in Georgia," Cox said. ...

• Oregon's punch-card votes are still less likely to count.
• 1% of punch-card voters listed no choice for governor, compared with 5. ...
• 6 billion bill gives states $650 million immediately, including $400 million to replace punch-card voting systems. ...
• California to replace punch-cards .
• By January 2006, nine counties must replace voting systems now used by 55% of the state's voters, or 8. ...
• State's voting reform stalled .
• Dump punch-card ballots:.
• This Oregonian editorial relates to HB 3742 and mentions punch-card ballots.
• Study finds punch card voting faults.
• Secretary Bradbury touts successes of vote-by-mail, highlights problems with punch cards in national hearing on election reform.
• Secretary of State Bill Bradbury calls for end to punch cards.

• California Mulls A Punch-Card Free Future .
• -- The Golden State will become the fourth in the country to outlaw punch cards, following the lead of Maryland, Florida and Georgia. It could also face the most complicated and costly upgrade as it looks to move its punch card machines from polling places to dumpsters by 2006. ...
• California Secretary of State Bill Jones announced last week the state would rid itself of the 1960s-era punch cards and counters still used in nine counties. ...
• Los Angeles voters have used punch cards since the 1960s. ... Unlike some Florida counties, which have already started upgrading from punch cards to optical scanners, McCormack said her sprawling district will be not be able to use the paper required by the optical systems. Instead, the county will have to spend an estimated $100 million purchasing touch-screen voting machines that will be able to serve voters with disabilities as well as display ballots in seven different languages using three distinct Asian character sets. ... This is a new voting system and people don't know how to use it. ... "Initially, a lot of people thought computerized voting would be the next step," Alexander said. "In the last nine months, there have been studies on new voting technology and a lot of policy questions have been raised about the use of computers in the voting process. ... If those questions are not answered, California's counties now looking to replace punch cards could select systems that could potentially have the same failings. ... The California ACLU sued Secretary of State Jones earlier this year, charging the state with violating the equal protection of its residents by using "voting machines of widely disparate quality. " ACLU leaders have already dismissed Jones' timetable as too lenient, forcing voters to endure unequal standards on voting machines for as long as five more years. If the lawsuit succeeds, the nine counties that are now scheduled to replace punch cards within five years might have to act much sooner. ... Alexander was quick to point out those who will be affected most by the decision will cast their ballots on punch card systems, giving them a "lesser chance" of having their votes counted correctly.

• Judge orders California to dump 'hanging chad' voting machines.
• A federal judge has ruled California must get rid of its punch-card voting machines by the 2004 elections.
• Punch card ballots were partially blamed for the confusion surrounding the 2000 presidential elections in Florida.
• 5 million people, vote with punch cards. Secretary of State Bill Jones last year ordered counties to replace the punch cards with newer voting systems, such as touch screens or optical scanners, by July 2005.
• But the ACLU sued, demanding the punch cards be replaced by the 2002 elections.

• TITLE: VOTING SIMULATION AUTHOR: Kathy L. ... OVERVIEW: Young people have a natural curiosity about the adult process of voting. ... PURPOSE: The purpose of this lesson is to help students become aware of the rights and responsibilities of voting. ... RESOURCES/MATERIALS: From the County Clerk's Office obtain current voter's pamphlets, poll books, and voting booths with punch cards. Teachers, students, and/or volunteers make up a voter registration card, booklet for voting booth, and box for depositing ballots. ... Have the class make up a booklet to be used in the voting booth with the punch cards County Clerk's office cannot give out official voting booklets, voting booths need to be used at least one week prior to actual election date . ...

• New E-mail alerts! Sign up now! 0 Internet no panacea for voting problems.
• With Florida still unable to claim a winner in the presidential election, the attention on voting methods and technologies is drawing renewed awareness to the imperfect business of tallying votes. ...
• Under the spotlight is whether counting votes by hand is more accurate than counting them by machines and whether some form of electronic voting ought to be widely adopted to reduce the risk of miscounts in close contests. ...
• com, an Internet voting company based in Garden City, N. ...
• Election watchers, however, note that overhauling the voting system is no easy task. Each state is responsible for setting voting regulations, with individual counties typically granted broad discretion to establish procedures, including purchasing voting equipment. Winning agreement on a county-by-county basis for a potentially costly replacement of voting machines is unlikely anytime soon. ...
• Punch cards, which are relatively cheap to set up and run, are used to tally votes in roughly 14 of Florida's counties as well as in many others across the country. ...
• Immediately after voting, the card is scanned to determine if it was done correctly--for example, if the bubbles were filled in completely. ...
• On the horizon is online voting, which was used in an absentee ballot pilot in the current disputed presidential election. But the transition from punch cards to one-click voting has taken longer than expected. Chief among the problems with online voting are security and a digital divide, meaning those who can't afford computers wouldn't be able to vote through an online system. ...
• "I can imagine a virus that might change your vote or send your ballot somewhere else," said Cranor, who focuses on electronic voting methods in her research. ...
• Mohen predicts that online voting will appear in some counties and states as early as next year for special elections. ...
• Machines that use punch cards in popular elections, such as the current presidential race, have been around since about the 1950s. ... But sometimes the voter doesn't punch through the card all the way, leaving a scrap of paper, or "chad," dangling. ...

• Touch-screen voting debuts in Santa Clara County.
• Punch-card ballots became history in Santa Clara County on Tuesday when it joined most of the rest of the state in using electronic voting machines.
• Since Florida's debacle during the 2000 presidential election, counties across the nation have been ditching punch cards and the notorious hanging chads for other voting systems such as optical scanners and touch screens.
• In California, where counties are under court order to replace punch cards by the March presidential primary, Santa Clara County is one of the last to switch. The county was one of only six in the state that used punch cards in the October gubernatorial recall. This prompted an unsuccessful lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups seeking to delay the recall on the grounds the punch-card systems were so flawed they would taint the election.
• 9 million contract with Sequoia Voting Systems to purchase 5,500 touch-screen machines in the spring. ...
• ``Otherwise, it's black box voting,'' said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation. ...
• On Tuesday, civil liberties groups went to San Jose federal court to stop one of the nation's largest voting machine manufacturers from continuing to threaten legal action against critics who have posted company documents on the Internet.
• The material, which has been widely circulated on the Internet, comprises internal memos and e-mails revealing potential flaws in Ohio-based Diebold's touch-screen voting system. Diebold is a major supplier of voting machines across the United States, and its touch-screen method was used in Tuesday's election in Alameda County, among others.

Do you have a great site about Voting And Punch Cards? Is your Voting And Punch Cards site listed here? Would you like a prefered placement of your site in this directory?

It's easy! First place, the HTML from the box below on your page that you would like listed in this directory.

Then use our link submission request with your name, your contact information, and the URL of your site that has a link to this directory. After we verify your link to us, we'll make sure your site stays in our directory, and we'll give it prefered placement here also.

Here is how to make a simple text link to us. Just copy the code in this box to your website:

We can also develop a custom Guide To The Internet for your site. Please request your own custom Guide To The Internet.