Why is it necessary to have touch screen voting?

Question

Seems to me that the optical scan (color in the oval) method
is much more efficient in time for the voter, automatically
creates a paper trail, and only requires one piece of
expensive hardware per 10-20 active voters. Have we
been lobbied an expensive, troublesome technology?

Answer 1

Not only are you right, the opscan machines also are cheaper
(at least in my state, NY), more compact, more durable, more
storable and stackable, simpler to use (less training required) and more reliable (longer life + warranties).

Oh and they are more accurate too:
http://www.rangevoting.org/pressrelease_2006_0828.html

And
http://www.rangevoting.org/MiamiDadePC.html
gives the story of how bad one place got clobbered because of their stupid decision to buy touchscreens.

A more recent example
was Sarasota County FL which in the congress district 13 race
elected the Republican Buchanan by 369 votes over Jennings.
So Jennings sued because 18000 votes appear to have been
"lost' (well, the voters supposedly came, voted, and even though this was the hottest race in FL, "just decided" not to vote on this race,
instead voting in larger numbers about the Hospital Board).
This was a 12.9% undervote rate in Sarasota County, but
in nearby counties, and in Sarasota absentee votes (not using
these machines) golly gee the undervote rate was 2.2 to 5.3%;
also the undervote rates on senator and governor in Sarasota were below 2%.
Since Jennings won Sarasota she would have won if there were even 8000 more Sarasota votes in the same proportions.
Jennings' legal team collected statements from "hundreds" of Sarasota residents who said they had problems with the touch-screen machines.
CBS News Investigative Unit obtained an E-mail by a key election official indicating she may have known well before Election Day the machines weren't working properly:
"Please remind every voter to make sure they do not overlook the 13th congressional race at the top
of the second page of voting," wrote Kathy Dent, Sarasota's Supervisor of Elections, to poll workers on Friday, Nov. 3.
"Some voters are overlooking the Buchanan/Jennings race until they get to the review screen," Dent continued in the E-mail,
"This is critical."
More than 120 Sarasota County voters contacted the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to report problems, almost all regarding the Jennings-Buchanan race.

My point: there was NO WAY to do a recount. This race was
probably screwed up and gave the wrong winner, and those
votes were gone forever, irrecoverably. With paper, you
could recount. So then, golly gee, in an editorial the
S.H.Tribune reported that
"One hundred thirty-three thousand citizens recently provided plenty of input about Sarasota County's voting system.
More than 74,000 of those citizens -- 55 percent of the county's general-election voters -- sent a clear message. They voted to replace the now-controversial electronic touch-screen elections system with voter-verified paper ballots."

Oops. I guess somebody is going to pay for that mistake
in that county. And guess what: the NIST just came out with a
report saying it should be unacceptable to have a voting
system wihtout a paper trail. Actually what they said more precisely was they want "software-independent verifiability." That is, no matter how hacked and bogus the software is, it should still be possible to recount the election and determine the totals - that
is the property they want. NIST report:

http://vote.nist.gov/DraftWhitePaperOnSIinVVSG2007-20061120.pdf

Answer 2

Yes, you're right. I think the touch screen would be okay if there were always a paper trail. Some have it and all should. Darned if I can figure out why they can't come up with federal standards for a uniform vote in all counties and states. The butterfly ballot had other problems not related to optical scanning. It was a new ballot & poorly designed &-newsflash, many people in Florida are older. . Apparently, the Federal Election Commission decided everything is fine. Just amazing for our democracy.

Answer 3

You're absolutely right about the optical scan being a more efficient use of both voter time and taxpayer money. However, because some voters (like those using the butterfly ballots in the 2000 election in Florida) lack the attention span or willingness to follow directions for using paper ballots we've been lobbied into adopting this expensive and troublesome technology. All this in an effort to keep from "disenfranchising" these voters.

Answer 4

I'm all for touch-screen voting... ONCE they work out the kinks, properly train those who run the voting centers, fix the ever-increasing errors, and have a paper trail, so they can do a manual recount, if required, without having to hold another election.

Holding a second election in the event of a machine failure would be a lot more expensive than installing a receipt roll into the machines.

Answer 5

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