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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (128537)	11/14/2000 2:39:08 PM
From: pgerassi	Respond to of 1570548

Dear Combjelly: This is where the Punched Card Ballots (PCB) have so many difficulties. They exist because they are cheap and the machines that read them are cheap (practically surplus even). Voting machines are more expensive to get and maintain and they leave a voter suspicious that they can be tampered with quite easily. Optically Scanned Ballots (OSB) lead in many ways. Accuracy of count. Repeatability (voting machines just don't repeat). Easy to use (how many of us have done multiple choice tests in school?). Hard to tamper with (easy to check machine counts wrong even by non technical users). Quick. Correctable (the machine checks each ballot as it scans rejecting any double count ones and even could check for undervotes, etc.). Sample ballots can be printed on a different paper (to be obvious being not a true ballot but, where everything is in the same place)(this cuts errors by allowing for greater training of voters). The problem is that the machines are more expensive (but less than voting machines) than punch card ones (in general). Also, since OSB are counted at vote time (a good reason to have them but, you need more of them), counts are quickened. PCBs are counted usually at a central location (to further reduce the number required (costs even less)), causing more problems with handling of PCBs, transport (OSB numbers can be called in (even PGP emailed)) of ballots, and simple throughput problems (one hundred machines can count more ballots as the vote goes on than one machine no matter how fast it is). The OSB scanners may count 1000 ballots in 13 hours (or about 77/hr) in 400 precincts and you need total only 400 numbers (can be done with some clerks in less than 30 minutes) versus an additional 220 minutes (about 4 hours) for a 1800 vote per minute punch card scanner (most are not even that fast (more like 300/min or 22 hours)). This is prone to breakdowns, soft errors, and hard errors. It is time to get rid of both voting machines and PCBs. Pete