dvice.com — About 56% of the U.S. population uses optical-scan machines, which are less error prone than older types like lever machines. Newer electronic touchscreens, giving many states their green color, are the least prone to voter mistakes.
Oct 20, 2008 View in Crawl 4
gooddartsOct 21, 2008
Problem: potential for voting error varies directly with minimized hacking potential. Keep is simple stupid with paper trail?
fireyvixenOct 21, 2008
this map is AWESOME, and super informative!
martianbobOct 21, 2008
This map is ridiculous. There have already been a number of cases (many on Digg!) of electronic voting machines inducing voter error. 66% of people DON'T NOTICE if there's a discrepancy between how they voted and what the confirmation screen says*! Those who do have to go back and make sure everything's okay. Add to that the fact that electronic voting machines take a lot longer to use than paper ballots, and what you're really looking at is a map of places where voters are likely to be turned away from the polls. Some voting experts expect that Fairfax County, VA is going to need a 40-hour long voting day because of the electronic voting machines, and that's if only half the registered voters show up.Buried as inaccurate.* Everett, S.P. 2007. The Usability of Electronic Voting Machines and How Votes Can Be Changed Without Detection. Doctoral dissertation, Rice University, Houston, TX.
meowmeowcatchowOct 21, 2008
If the "official" paper ballot was in an encrypted format, how would the voter know what it says?Privacy isn't the biggest issue for paper ballots (you can hide you ballot in a manila folder until you get it to the optical scan machine or other ballot box -- that's more or less how it's done now). In fact, they (voting system vendors) are working on a "hybrid" machine that the voter would interact with like current DREs but would print a filled-in optical scan ballot after vote confirmation. In this system the paper ballot would be the "official" ballot and the tally on the machines could be used as an unofficial immediate result.The reason why the hybrid machines are not in use yet is that the federal standards will be changing soon (draft standards for a few years from now came out in 2007) and the certification process for an electronic voting machine is about 2 years right now.