Quick Study: Voting Machines (page 3 of 4)

• Election 2008
• Politics
• Better America

The Time Line

1790s-1830s: Voice vote
Pros -- Voters are sworn in and announce their choice to the clerk, who records it in a poll book next to their names. No ballot box, so it can't be stuffed.
Cons -- No privacy.

1830s-1880s: Paper ballot
Pros -- "Transparent"-easy to understand and recount, and can be made private. The ultimate paper trail.
Cons -- Lost ballots, ballot box stuffing.

1890s: Mechanical lever machine
Pros -- Prevents "overvotes" (voting for more than one candidate for the same race). Machine-counted results available immediately, eliminating the need for hand-counting.
Cons -- No paper trail. Votes "disappear" the minute the lever is pulled.

1960s: Punch Cards
Pros -- Easily stored ballots provide paper trail for recounts.
Cons -- Overvotes, undervotes (skipping races), voter error. "Hanging chads." Bad design (the "butterfly ballot" in the 2000 Presidential race).

1980s: Optical scanners
Pros -- Voters mark ballot, which is then read by optical scanner. Creates paper trail plus electronic record. Vote is immediately visible to voter, and hand recounts can be done with actual ballots. Faster for voters than touch screens.
Cons -- Paper ballots difficult to transport, store. Print quality and design vary, making some ballots hard to decipher.

2000s:
DREs, no paper trail
Pros -- Impossible to overvote, hard to undervote. Shorter lines, faster count. Multiple electronic records of each vote.

Cons -- Machines crash, lose or "flip" votes. No paper trail creates possibility of fraud. Tampering almost impossible to detect. Precincts dependent on manufacturers to maintain machines. And voters don't seem to trust them.

DREs, paper trail
Pros -- Voters can check final vote before casting. Machine prints tape of all votes.
Cons -- Same as at left, plus printer jams. Hacker can plant virus in machine before it's used, rigging results. Or original software can have bugs. Paper trail is a mile long.

Voting over the Internet (VOI)
Pros -- Web-based registration and voting-still being developed-is a boon for absentee voters, who otherwise mail in their ballots. Paper copies of digital votes would provide paper trail.
Cons -- Will voters ever trust ballots cast in cyberspace?

• In Their Own Words
• To gauge how today's youth will shape our upcoming election, Reader's Digest commissioned a poll that posed a broad range of questions about the political and personal views of young adults between the ages of 19 and 29.
• 
• About Our Survey
• Find out more about how we conducted our poll of young voters in the 2008 election.
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Sitting through fire safety and prevention programs can make anyone nod off. So the instructor tried to lighten the mood by going around the room asking where all the guests were from. "Burnt Mattress, Arkansas," called out the friend sitting next to me.

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