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Feds to Recommend Paper Trail for Electronic Votes

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the jig-is-up dept.

flanksteak writes "The National Institute of Standards and Technology is going to recommend the decertification of all electronic voting machines that don't create paper records. Although it sounds like this recommendation may have been in the works for a while, the recent issues in Sarasota, FL (18,000 missing votes) have brought the issue a higher profile. The most interesting comment in the story comes near the end, in which the author cites a study that said paper trails from electronic voting machines aren't all they're cracked up to be."

3 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. As a matter of accounting.... by 3seas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It seems to me that ATM machines get a great deal more use and account for a great deal of money. They give a receipt and also have an internal paper log. It takes two people to open one up legally ....

    You'd think this was new technology in light of the voting machine problems.
    But ATMs have been in use for at least a quarter century.

  2. Re:Paper voting! by QuantumRiff · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Remember the vote for leader of Iraq that Our government bragged about? The one with the election that we setup to be fair and honest? People voted by dipping their thumb in ink, and then voting for the canditate by pressing their thumb next to the candidate.. No duplicate voting, since its obvious when someone walks in with a purple thumb.. Simple, effective, and fair... And people were told to "Twist" their thumbprint to make sure that the print wasn't readable..

    --

    What are we going to do tonight Brain?
  3. San Francisco machines are the best IMHO by geneing · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I think that the voting machines that San Francisco uses are the best design so far. We get a paper form on which you mark your vote (by drawing a line next to your choice). If you are voting in person, you feed the paper into a machine that 1) Alerts you if you overvoted or didn't mark anything 2) Counts the votes and 3) Stores the marked paper ballot.

    This system has all the benefits: the preliminary results are available immediately from the electronic machine, there is a complete paper trail, you know if the machine couldn't read the ballot, and absentee ballots look exactly the same as the ballots in the precinct. Why isn't this system used everywhere?