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

• Rising Stars 2001: Company sets out to make online voting a winner.
• net, a 4-year-old Bellevue company that hopes this fall to roll out a computer-based voting system.
• In the past two years, with competitors such as Seattle-based Validity Systems chasing him in the race to make Internet voting a reality, Adler and his crew of cryptologists have demonstrated VoteHere's system in 15 ``mock elections'' in four states, including Washington, where it has been tested in five counties.
• But, until recently, most county election officials in the United States told Adler they weren't ready to change their voting systems -- a third of which rely on punch cards.
• What he told them, in part, is that VoteHere -- a touch-screen software system for personal computers -- has an error rate of less than 1 percent compared to 4 percent for punch cards. ...
• ``We used to hear, `If it's not broken, let's not fix it,''' Adler said of how voting officials used to react to VoteHere. ``Now a third of the systems are (considered) broken -- those with punch cards. ...
• As a result, he added, ``Many counties won't do another punch-card vote again because they are afraid they will get sued by the loser. ...
• Internet voting from home is still a ways down the road, Adler said. ... That means precincts could, in fact, offer electronic voting this fall.
• If just the counties with punch-card systems convert, Adler said he's looking at a $1. ...
• Still, many people remain leery of electronic voting. ...
• net, hopes to roll out a computer-based voting system, by this fall. ...

• Punch cards vs. ...
• I don't know about your states, but in mine, at least in my county (Josephine County, Oregon), we have this wonderful method of voting. ... Supposed to get more people to vote, because they can vote in the privacy of their own homes, not have to drive the two or three miles to their voting places, and "have time to research the issues at their leisure, instead of having to do this while sitting in the voting booth. ...
• Lots of people (at least 4000 in this election, statewide) vote more than once, since the voting registrations aren't cleaned up that often, and ballots are forwarded to peoples' new addresses. ...
• Washington State reports that their recount of their punch card ballots indicated that the punch card was more accurate than the scanned ballots. ...
• I saw a system shown on TV, that has been used on small scale, allowing use of a computer screen/keyboard in a voting booth. ... If expanded to allow voting by internet, it could even do away with absentee ballots and allow instantaneous voting from citizens travelling around the world. ...
• One of there concerns was voiced by one of the members: "Oh boy, my hacker buddies can't WAIT for internet voting. ...
• If you think for one second that punch cards are better than scanners forget it. ... PS the democarts have a new name for voting ROCKETSCIENCE. ...
• The system in use in Leon County, Florida (where Tallahassee is) uses optical scanners, but at the voting places. After a voter is finished voting, the ballot is submitted to a computer check. ...
• On the punch card machines used in South Florida, instructions were clearly shown on the voting machines which should have avoided at least hanging chaps. Punch card voting has the benefit of being relatively cheap. ...
• A few words about the Great Punch Card System. My experience with computers goes back to the IBM 360 series that used punch cards as input 30 years ago. I also had a nice long talk with an election official here in Ohio where punch card voting machines are widely used. ...

• One county still uses punch cards .
• A scant few ``chads'' had to be checked in Wisconsin after this week's primary election, because only one county has kept the punch-card voting system that the state has banned, effective next Jan. ...
• Prompted in part by the disputed punch-card results in last fall's Florida presidential recounts, state election officials voted in November to revoke the use of punch-card voting in Wisconsin by the end of 2001. About 7 percent of state voters in three counties used punch cards Nov. ...
• The county had already sought to replace the punch cards before last fall's presidential election but chose to ease into the change in a smaller primary race. ...
• Croix County, which also used punch cards Nov. ...

• Florida Invests $24M in Wireless Voting Machines.
• The ES&S hardware and software replaces Miami-Dade County's infamous punch-card voting system and meets a mandate from the Florida legislature that all punch-card systems in the state be upgraded to either touch-screen or optical-scan units by September 2002. ...
• The Sunshine State may soon have cutting-edge, wireless voting machines in its most populous county. ...
• Miami-Dade County officials are leading the charge to overhaul the state's voting process. A contract inked with Election Systems & Software (ES&S) provides for the purchase of 7,250 iVotronic touch-screen voting units, four Model 650 central count tabulation machines and related election software and support services. ...
• An Audio Ballot feature enables the casting of ballots by visually impaired voters, and its portability allows curbside and wheelchair-access voting, the company said. ...
• To ensure the accuracy of voter intent and ballot correctness, ES&S said, the machines prevent over-voting and alert the voter of under-voted races. ...
• Punching Out Punch Cards .
• The ES&S hardware and software replaces Miami-Dade County's infamous punch-card voting system, currently used by some 918,000 registered voters, and meets a mandate from the Florida legislature that all punch-card systems in the state be upgraded to either touch-screen or optical-scan units by September 2002. ...
• "The iVotronic is the first touch-screen voting device officially certified in Florida, and the only such unit formally approved by the state for voters with disabilities. ...
• Of the 41 Florida counties with plans to modernize their voting systems, 25 have chosen ES&S for the upgrades, Tesi said. ...
• The company's hardware and software are used in all phases of the election process, including voter registration, ballot production, voting, vote tabulation and results reporting. ...
• The touch-screen voting system earned rave reviews from elections officials Cuyahoga County, Ohio, during last fall's citywide primary in Cleveland, ES&S reported. ...
• "Voters overwhelmingly enjoyed using the iVotronic voting system and do not want to go back to punch cards," said Thomas L. ...
• Since its introduction in November 1995, the Votronic touch-screen voting system has tallied more than 1 million votes across the U. ...
• End Election Confusion with E-Voting.

• Oregon’s Secretary of State Bill Bradbury says it’s important that Clackamas County phase out its punch-card ballots before the expected Feb. 3 vote on the Legislature’s tax surcharge — but even though Bradbury’s office has made money available for a voting-system switch, it isn’t clear whether it will happen in time. ... “The Secretary of State’s office has been strongly encouraging the three counties that still use punch cards” — including Clackamas County — to change, he told CHS students. According to Bradbury, if some counties are still using punch cards when the presumed February referral vote comes up — while others have switched to a more reliable system — a lawsuit could delay the vote. ... “We’re looking at having punch cards gone — and optical scanners in place — by the Feb. ... ” Punch cards = problems After Florida’s problems with punch card ballots in the 2000 presidential election, many states — including California — began moving to more modern voting technologies. And problems arose in California when it was revealed that several counties would still be using punch cards by the time of the scheduled gubernatorial recall vote. ... In Oregon, Lane, Washington and Clackamas counties are still using punch cards. Bradbury warned that the 9th Circuit decision could be applied here: “Our elections are vulnerable until such a time as we eliminate punch cards,” he said. ... A matter of measurements, not money Bradbury said there’s no financial excuse not to switch: “We have the federal money to phase out punch cards,” he said. ... The new machines we are going to be buying are a lot bigger than the punch-card readers.

• , Texas' largest county is on pace to ditch similar punch card balloting within a year. ...
• Harris County plans to eliminate pesky punch cards .
• , Texas' largest county is on pace to ditch similar punch card balloting within a year.
• That will mean an end to punch cards, the preferred voting method in the county since 1982.
• The county is dumping punch cards - in which voters use a small stylus to poke out perforated "chads" next to their candidates' names - because its 12 ballot-counting machines are aging and replacement parts are scarce, Kaufman said.
• It was decided that the $7 million expenditure wouldn't advance voting technology and could lead to nontechnical problems such as double-voting, just as in the current system.
• Computerized voting also would make "voter intent" clear, removing human discretion in whether to count chads that were partially punched or slightly dimpled.
• Computer screens prevent double-voting and can be equipped to comply with a recent state law requiring new voting machines to allow visually impaired voters to cast their ballots confidentially. ...

• --> Original Article   Critics fear electronic systems are no better than punch cards.
• A day after a federal appeals court ruled that the California recall election must be postponed, some critics assailed the judges' assumption that newer digital voting machines are more fair or effective than older punch-card ones.
• While punch-card machines may allow "overvoting" errors, in which extra broken chads void a ballot, their electronic counterparts can be prone to other problems, including hacking, electronic malfunctions, and the fact that they leave no paper trail that can be used during a recount.
• "It infuriates me that we are experimenting with paperless transactions in the one election that matters most," said Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation, which studies voting technology.
• 7 election are unequivocal on the issue of whether punch-card voting is unfair.
• "Voters in counties using pre-scored punch-card balloting will have a statistically more probable chance that their vote will not be counted. ...
• But while the decision highlighted problems with punch cards, it did not allay critics' fears over electronic machines that use touchscreen or scanning technology.
• David Dill, a Stanford computer science professor, believes that with punch cards, voters at least have some control over whether the ballot is filled out. But computerized voting, he said, is subject to a dangerous array of hidden problems such as viruses, malicious software and bad coding.
• Dill doubts that any software is reliable enough to support data as important as voting results. ...
• Dill and Alexander, who served on a state task force to review touchscreen voting, both argue that touchscreen machines are fair only if they produce a written record of each vote that can be compared to the electronic tabulation in case questions arise.
• Moreover, Alexander defended California's punch cards against comparisons to Florida. ... We maintain our voting machines better. ...
• Election officials at nearby counties that use punch cards mounted their own defense. ...
• Punch cards "have been a very good system in Santa Clara County," said Elma Rosas, a spokeswoman for that county's election division. After the secretary of state decertified Santa Clara County's punch-card system, along with those in five other counties, Rosas' office placed an $18. ...

• Ann Johansson for The New York Times Barbara Holland, cleaning voting equipment in Los Angeles, where punch cards will be used. The cards will be outlawed in the state in 2004. ...
• Graphic: Voting in California.
• Gray Davis in California: millions of voters will be voting on punch cards, those of pimpled, dimpled chad fame so discredited by Florida in 2000.
• The punch card was outlawed in California, as of March 2004, because of the Florida chaos. ... Rather than risk a headlong rush toward unfamiliar electronic equipment — a hallmark of Florida's later voting disaster in 2002 — nearly half of California's 58 counties, including Los Angeles, are sticking with punch cards for the recall.
• As a result, they say, punch cards are now no less reliable than any other voting method.
• The main problem with punch cards, depending on the type, is that they can hold a limited number of candidates. ...
• Punch cards certainly have detractors. Governor Davis and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California have sued the state's elections officials, saying that punch cards have higher error rates than other methods and are more prevalent in low-income neighborhoods. Punch cards, they say, are putting the Oct. ...
• The governor and others predict that the mechanics of this election — the punch cards, the short time for preparation and a reduction in some counties of the number of polling places — could mean disaster.
• "The result is a disparity of voting opportunity that makes Florida's election procedures look almost pristine by comparison," the governor's lawyers wrote in court papers seeking unsuccessfully to delay the vote until March, when it would coincide with the presidential primary. ... Davis's lawyers say, the counties will have switched to more reliable voting equipment and will not have to reduce the number of polling places.
• 's case against punch cards is still alive in federal court. ...
• The biggest concern in some counties is that with possibly hundreds of candidates, the ballot could run several pages or onto several cards. ...

• History of Voting Machines.
• The practice of using balls to cast votes continued up until the late 19th century, well after more advanced voting machines were invented. ...
• Appropriately known as the “Australian ballot,” this form of ballot voting didn’t reach the United States until the late-1880s. ...
• The first lever voting machine, called the “Myers Automatic Booth,” debuted in Lockport, New York, in 1892. With mechanical lever voting machines, each candidate or ballot issue is assigned to a lever. ...
• They are no longer made and have since been replaced by computerized voting machines.
• Punch Cards.
• Punch Cards .
• The standard punch card, invented by Herman Hollerith in the late 1880s, was originally designed to tabulate statistics for the Baltimore Board of Health. ...
• With the punch card voting system, a card containing several small holes is attached to a sturdy board. Voters use a stylus, or a pen-shaped tool, to punch through the holes. ... Once the voting has been completed, the voter may drop his or her ballot into the ballot box or feed it into a computerized vote-tabulating machine.
• Two types of punch cards have since been created. ... The votomatic cards have numbers that correspond to each hole. ... The list of candidates or ballot issues are printed somewhere else within the voting booth for the voter to refer to. The datavote, on the other hand, has the names of the candidates or ballot issues printed directly next to the punch hole.

• Now their vote-counting machine was rejecting thousands of punch-card ballots because the cardboard had warped in the damp night air. ...
• Thanks to the spectacularly imperfect voting methods in use around the U. ... —scribbled paper, antique voting machines and those finicky punch cards—hundreds of thousands of ballots are discarded each year. ...
• "If your choice is between new voting machines and a road grader," says Arkansas secretary of state Sharon Priest, "it’s no contest. ...
• The adoption of a uniform national voting technology might be a good idea, but it’s something almost no one expects to see. ... But while Gans and other experts don’t support a uniform nationwide voting method, they do favor measures such as design standards for all ballots. ...
• For now, however, voting around the country is a patchwork of flawed and often antiquated methods. For more than a century, voting techniques have paralleled the stages of the Industrial Revolution. Big metal voting machines, products of the age of iron and steel, were first used in New York State in 1892. ...
• It was at the peak of their popularity, in 1964, that nimble cardboard punch cards arrived. ... By now the punch cards are the most common election device, used by 34% of voters, and the old machines have gone out of production.
• But punch cards introduce their own problems. ... Those problems led Wisconsin to ban the cards in the 1990s, just as New Hampshire had done in 1986. A 1988 report by the National Bureau of Standards urged that punch cards be abandoned everywhere. William Gardner, New Hampshire’s secretary of state, recalls a test run in which five cards were put through a counting machine three times—and produced three different counts. "It was not the most comforting feeling when you had to do a recount with punch cards," he says. ...

• Electronic voting.
• Electronic Voting describes various means of determining people's intent electronically. Electronic voting includes voting by kiosk, internet, telephone, punch card, and optical scan ballot (a. ...
• Voting takes place for a wide variety of issues, ranging from determining the next garden club officers to determining the next leader of a country. Different voting systems meet different requirements depending on the circumstances.
• 2 Mark-Sense Voting.
• 3 Punch Card Voting.
• 4 Internet Voting.
• 5 Telephone Voting.
• 6 Six Commandments of Electronic Voting.
• 7 Problems with Electronic Voting.
• Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting systems tally votes directly to computer memory. The voting machines typically take the form of an automatic teller machine or a laptop computer. ...
• DRE voting systems are often favored because they can incorporate assistive technologies for handicapped people, allowing them to vote without involving another person in the process. ...
• The primary challenge with DRE voting machines is re-counting votes to verify that the computer performed its task appropriately. The Mercuri Method of electronic voting, described by Rebecca Mercuri, addresses the problem by having the DRE machine print a paper ballot that is verified by the voter before being dropped into a ballot box. ...

• High Costs Could Slow Proposed Voting Reforms.
• Voting Systems.
• Vendors with NASED-Qualified Voting Systems.
• High Costs Could Slow Proposed Voting Reforms.
• Voting Systems.
• The voting systems described below are those certified for use in federal, state and local elections in the United States. ... 5 percent of precincts, punch cards in 34. ...
• Paper ballots are used as the primary voting system in small communities and rural areas and often for absentee balloting in other jurisdictions. ...
• Mechanical Lever Machines: On mechanical voting machines, the name of the candidate or ballot issue choice is assigned a particular lever in a rectangular array on the front of the machine. ...
• Punch Cards: Punch-card systems employ a card and a small clipboard-sized device for recording votes. Voters punch holes in the cards opposite their candidates or issue choices. ... Many jurisdictions are switching from punch-card systems to more advanced Marksense or direct recording electronic systems. ...
• Direct Recording Electronic System: This is the most recent device in voting system evolution. ...

• New voting ballots replace punch cards in Lane County .
• Optical scan ballots and voting with dark, black pen marks have replaced the punch card ballots and the poked-out chads that were vilified in the contested 2000 presidential election. ...
• The new voting system -- also called marksense -- arrived at Lane County Elections in time to be used for the Feb. ...
• In comparison, voters using the punch card ballots vote by poking out a small, numbered square of paper that corresponds to their choice, numbered on a separate sheet of paper. ...
• Political science Professor Priscilla Southwell said the new ballots are a great improvement over the punch card ballots. ...
• There is little fear of manipulation of the system, a criticism that has frequently been leveled against electronic, touch-screen voting, which does not produce a paper record. ...
• Southwell said the push against punch card voting came about directly in response to problems not only in Florida but in states throughout the country in the 2000 elections. ...
• In 2002, federal legislators passed the Help America Vote Act -- which gives money to states to pay for new, non-punch card voting systems -- in addition to a number of election reforms. ...
• New voting ballots replace punch cards in Lane County .

• Punch cards give appeals court pause in California recall hearing .
• — In a case reminiscent of the legal battle that clouded the 2000 presidential election, a federal appeals-court panel questioned yesterday whether California's recall vote should go forward because six counties still use the flawed punch-card voting system. ...
• Lawyers for civil-rights groups that want to stop the election argued that a statistical study showed 40,000 poor and minority voters might have their ballots excluded if punch-card ballots are used in the Oct. ...
• Circuit Court of Appeals noted during the hearing that the California secretary of state had found the punch-card system unacceptable because of errors. ...
• Recall proponents want to go forward using punch cards in Los Angeles, Mendocino, Sacramento, San Diego, Santa Clara and Solano counties. ...
• Woods, representing the secretary of state, acknowledged during the hearing the punch-card system has been found "obsolete, antiquated and unacceptable. ...
• Attorney Mark Rosenbaum, appearing for the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Southwest Voter Registration Education Project, told judges there are "grave federal interests" involving the Voting Rights Act and potential discrimination against poor and minority voters who may have difficulty with the punch-card ballots. ...

• E-voting .
• Badmouthing punch cards.
• From the Center for Voting and Democracy ------ Much existing equipment, such as punch card systems, in addition to being unreliable, is not compatible with ranking candidates or "clumping" votes as in cumulative voting. ...
• You can do very sophisticated processing with punch cards, it's all done mechanically, but you can see exactly what is going on. ...
• This whole computer voting thing is just a distraction, a red herring. ...
• They think punch cards are an â œobsolete technologyâ �, the worst thing imaginable. ...
• Posted on January 31, 2004 in E-voting | Permalink .

• Punch Cards More Reliable Than Touch Screen, Data Vote or Optical Scan: 9th Circuit=Clowns.
•   Having said that, my support for the decision was based on the oft-stated "fact" that ballots cast on the punch card voting machines are more likely to be tossed than are votes cost by electronic means.
•   Two respected institutions, The  California Institute of Technology and MIT,  conducted a study of error rates with various voting machines. ...
• Punch Cards?  They have an error rate of 2. ...
• Isn't that just typical of the way things go today?  Those evil punch card voting machines turned out to be the most error free of the machines in use today. ...
• ) Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies To: Congressman Billybob The only problem is that the former secretary of state, Bill Jones, a Republican, declared the punch cards taboo. ...
• It would seem Bootz is focusing on only a part of the problem with punch-card ballots. ...
• 8 posted on 09/18/2003 6:35:48 PM PDT by stubernx98 Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies To: stubernx98 I trust electronic voting like I trust online polls. 9 posted on 09/18/2003 6:41:42 PM PDT by TheOtherOne Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies To: TheOtherOne The error rate for punch cards is virtually nil. ...
• But you run 100,000 punch cards through the recounter and you will get the same result every time. ... The other methods mentioned create even greater error rates because some people don't scribble on the optical scanner cards hard enough and people get confused when they look at a computer screen, since their sample ballot is in a different form.
• Punch cards are the best way to count votes. ... Whitebread is alive!) Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies To: RDangerfield The ACLU lawyers were the ones that put into the trial court record the "Oh-my-God" punch card statistics. ...
• For these other voting technologies, though, it's unclear what the error rates mean. ... 12 posted on 09/18/2003 6:46:46 PM PDT by supercat (TAG--you're it!) Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies To: RDangerfield The ACLU lawyers were the ones that put into the trial court record the "Oh-my-God" punch card statistics. ...
• ) Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies To: RDangerfield The ACLU lawyers were the ones that put into the trial court record the "Oh-my-God" punch card statistics. ...

• High-tech "paperless" voting has fueled fears of election rigging on an unprecedented scale. ...
• But the supervisors did consider a proposition many find genuinely scary--tossing out our old punch-card voting machines and replacing them with a fancy new computerized system--and decided, for now, not to go there. ...
• The board did what it had to do under a federal court order issued in the wake of the Florida election debacle of 2000 that required the county to replace its punch-card voting system by March 2004. The supervisors passed a stopgap measure that will replace the familiar punch-card machines with an equally low-tech "optical scan" system in time for the 2004 primaries, and agreed to revisit the idea of touch-screen voting in a few months. ...
• The board did not embrace, for now, the idea of "paperless voting," which Sacramento has toyed with for nearly two years and which other local governments in the state have implemented already. ...
• Although local voters may not know it, Sacramento is at the forefront of a national debate about paperless voting--as local governments across the country contemplate spending billions to retool and replace the very infrastructure of democracy. ...
• Fairly or not, the "chad" became emblematic of the problems associated with 20th-century voting systems, and there has been a national push to replace punch cards and other mechanical voting machines with state-of-the-art computers. ...
• In California, the American Civil Liberties Union and election-reform advocate group Common Cause brought a lawsuit against nine California counties, arguing that the punch-card system was likely to disenfranchise voters, especially people of color who reside in the heavily urban counties where punch-card systems are used most commonly. ...
• Federal judges agreed and ordered the nine California counties that use punch-card systems, including Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles, to scrap the machines by March 2004. ...
• And there are a host of other pressures on local government to move away from punch cards and toward computer systems. ...
• New state legislation also requires that voting machines be accessible to disabled voters. ...
• There's quite a lot of money on the table right now to encourage local governments to replace all of their voting machines. HAVA provides nearly $4 billion to replace punch cards. And in 2002, California voters passed Proposition 41, which created a pot of $200 million to help purchase new voting systems. ...
• They worry about a loss of transparency in the voting process, if voters are asked to put their trust in software and computer programmers, instead of a solid, verifiable ballot voters can hold in their hands. ...
• And early on in the national computerized-voting experiment, problems have cropped up. Those glitches have raised questions about the reliability of the technology and have fueled fears that computerized voting machines could allow tampering and fraud on a scale never seen before. ...

• John Engler hopes the man he backed for president will come through with federal help to put the whole state on new electronic voting equipment by the 2002 election. ...
• State waits for federal voting aid.
• These five voting methods are used in the communities listed, and many others. ...
•    * Voting machines: Ferndale. ...
•    * Punch cards: Mason County, East Lansing. ...
• John Engler hopes the man he backed for president will come through with federal help to put the whole state on new electronic voting equipment by the 2002 election. ...
•    Miller last month told a House committee that a hodge-podge of voting methods leaves Michigan ripe for trouble. ...
•    She describes Michigan's system as balkanized: 5,376 voting districts using five methods -- paper ballots, voting machines, punch cards, computer-screen touch balloting and optical scanners, in which voters mark ballots that then are fed through a computerized reader. ...

• Punch cards may be as good a way to vote as any.
• The punch card voting system is not perfect, but it is probably just as accurate as the replacement systems being considered. ...
• Pinellas County purchased the punch card system after a state attorney's investigation found the lever system subject to manipulation. ...
• The punch card system was selected after an exhaustive study by the supervisor of elections, state attorney's office, County Commission, Democratic Party and the Republican Party. ...
• There is the human problem of tampering with the equipment, purposely mishandling the mechanical problems, using card stock not as specified, using poorly perforated cards and using cards printed out of line, which could have been the cause of hanging chads, dimpled chads and other problems that surfaced during the 2000 election. ...
• A final note: Re-evaluate the punch card system under the same specified conditions as all other systems being considered. It might be found that the punch card system, with the noted problems being corrected, would be as capable as the others of producing a high level of efficiency. ...
• Re: Voters might be stuck with punch cards for now, Feb. ...
• As a senior citizen who experienced considerable difficulty in using a punch-card machine in the recent election, I find it outrageous that Sen. ... secretary of state who was Bush's spokesman) on the tallying of questionable punch-card ballots. ...
• This Baker-Bush-inspired clone of a voting procedure will disenfranchise once again at least two deserving groups: new voters and frail, elderly seniors. For goodness' sake, people, if I, a 215-pound, well-muscled individual, could not punch out a chad in voting for my candidate for president in the last election -- could not, that is, until with considerable twisting and turning of the stylus while exerting downward pressure, I managed to dislodge a presumably stuck chad from a previous voter's efforts -- how do you expect many clueless new voters and frail, handicapped seniors to cope with what is clearly a punch-card machine failure? .
• I submit that since these defective punch-card machines with worn rubber backings where chads may stick will be used again in the coming municipal elections, only a hand recount of ballots will tally all valid votes, and these votes would include, of course, ballots with hanging and dimpled chads. ...
• I have lived and worked in a number of states and a few foreign countries since reaching voting age in 1953. ...
• Each time I voted in Florida using a punch card, I have held my ballot up to the light to ensure that there were no chads -- hanging or otherwise. ...
• I object to punch card ballots because I'm extremely left-handed, and I must choose between not seeing what I'm doing if I use my left hand, or not being sure the stylus has done what I want if I use my less effective right hand. ...

• How E-Voting Will Work.
• › Introduction to How E-Voting Will Work.
• › Point and Click Voting.
• › Testing E-Voting Technology.
• Point and Click Voting.
• Photo courtesy Sequoia Pacific Voting Equipment.
• Some voters are already trying out touch-screen voting computers like this one.
• 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. ...

•     Despite the Help America Vote Act signed in 2002 to improve the electoral system, 32 million registered voters still will be using punch cards in the November presidential election, according to a report released last week. ...
•     Illinois, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee and Utah will have the largest number of counties planning to use punch cards. Florida, where the election system created the 2000 presidential election stalemate, has replaced all its punch-card machines with either optical or electronic equipment. ...
•     Almost $4 billion of federal funding has been allocated to states for the replacement of punch-card voting systems. ...
• Brace said at the National Press Club, where the political consulting firm released a study about voting equipment. ...
•     About 28 percent of registered voters used punch cards for the general election in 2000, and 17 percent, or 32 million voters, will use that method in November, the report said. ...
• Optical-scan equipment — the most commonly used voting system — increased from 29 percent to 32 percent during the same period of time. ...
•     Before the coming general election, 265 counties will have phased out the punch-card system, but 307 counties, with 18 percent of registered voters, still are expected to use punch cards. ...
•     Because of security concerns, some counties that have acquired electronic systems might not have time to implement replacement systems and may be forced to return to punch cards in November, the report said. ...

• Punch Cards.
• Gradually, it came to replace voting by ticket. ...
• They are primarily used in small towns, rural areas, or for absentee voting. ...
• The voter entered a booth, drew a curtain, and then pulled the levers corresponding to each voting choice. The machines recorded the votes and the numbers of people voting. ...
• But the use of some type of voting mechanism is even older. ...
• Punch Cards.
• The famous "butterfly" ballot used in Florida is a type of punch card ballot. There are two main types of punch card ballot. ...
• Each voting choice is assigned a number. They also receive a punch card covered with holes. ... They must punch the hole that corresponds to the number of the choice they wish to make. ... " Voters would have to punch the hole at the correct number to register their preference. ...
• Punch cards were first used in two Georgia counties for the 1964 presidential primary election. In 1996, 37% of all voters used punch cards, including the 3. ...
• Optical scanning calls for voters to use a black marker fill in a circle, or box beside their voting choice. ...

• 9 counties told they must replace punch cards by '04 .
• Santa Clara and Los Angeles -- must replace their punch-card voting machines with something more reliable. ...
• The ruling comes in a lawsuit filed by minority groups and voting-rights advocates, who say the current system discriminates against voters in counties with antiquated machines. ...
• That state, one of four sued for voting machine disparities, is ahead of California in converting to more modern machines, said attorney Dan Tokaji of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. ...
• He said yesterday's ruling was the first in the nation to require a state to get rid of punch-card machines. ...
• "Because of this decision, voting in California will move out of the dark ages before the 2004 presidential election," said Brad Phillips, another attorney for the plaintiffs. ...
• "It is time to move beyond the outdated chad-prone punch-card ballots," Jones said. ...
• Countywide touch-screen voting is now available only in Riverside County. ...
• The state will provide $200 million in matching funds for upgrades of local voting systems if voters approve Proposition 41 on the March 5 ballot. ...
• The nine counties with punch-card machines are Alameda, Los Angeles, Mendocino, Sacramento, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Clara, Shasta and Solano. ...

• NATURE OF ACTION: Action to compel a prosecuting attorney to formulate a ballot title for a referendum regarding a county ordinance to convert the county's voting system from lever machines to punch cards. ...
• Supreme Court: Holding that the prosecutor lacked discretion to refuse to create a ballot title, that the decisions to implement and fund a punch card voting system were legislative in character, and that the ordinance was not necessary for the support of county government, the court REVERSES the judgment. ...
• MAJORITY OPINION: The Committee Against Punch Card Election sought to compel the prosecuting attorney for Pierce County to ballot title a referendum on Pierce County Ordinance 81-21, passed by the Pierce County Council on July 7, 1981. ...
•       "WHEREAS, the Operations Committee of the Pierce County Council has undertaken the task of investigating the feasibility of converting to punch card voting equipment for use in federal, state, county, city, town and district elections conducted within Pierce County; and .
•       "WHEREAS, the committee has compared punch card voting against the alternative of remaining with the existing lever machine method; and .
•       "WHEREAS, procurement of new punch card voting equipment is expected to occur over a period of not more than five years, thereby requiring payment of funds from appropriations in subsequent fiscal years; NOW, THEREFORE, .
• The County Council hereby declares it to be the policy of Pierce County to phase out and convert from existing lever machine voting equipment to computer vote tallying/ punch card equipment, provided that the County continue using the same type of absentee ballots as is being used now. ...
• authorized a conversion in the county voting system from the existing lever machine voting equipment to a punch card voting/ computer tallying system. The Council, in an effort to implement such ordinance, authorized an appropriation of $750,000 to cover the cost of acquiring the punch card system. The punch card voting equipment has been certified by the state voting machine committee (as required under RCW 29. ...
• Eleanora Ballasiotes, on behalf of The Committee Against Punch Card Election, timely filed a referendum petition with the Pierce County Auditor. ...
• The court found the change from lever voting machine equipment to a punch card system was an administrative decision and was not subject to referendum. Additionally, the trial court held that funding the punch card system purchase was a legislative function, but that it was not referendable because it was within the (section 5. ...
• The present voting machine equipment used in Pierce County provides an unofficial vote count at the precinct polling place. The proposed punch card system for the county does not provide an unofficial count at the precinct level. ...
• The new punch card system requires physical transfer of the uncounted ballots from the precinct polling place to the counting center. ...

• Punch card voting machines being sold.
•  Several punch-card voting machines used this year in St. ...
•  Wisconsin election officials outlawed the machines in November, prompted in part by controversy over the punch cards in the Florida presidential vote. ...
• Croix County -- new voting machines cost about $5,500 apiece, a county official said. ...

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