[wbrendel]

What's wrong with paper ballots again? Serious question.

In my area (northern MA), voters are given a ballot with a bubble next to each of the candidates' names. You use a marker to fill in the bubble next to the candidate you want to vote for, like 6-year-olds manage to do all the time on multiple choice tests in school. Then it gets read in by a machine, leaving a paper trail just in case.

How are these electronic voting machines any better than that? With all the technical/fraud issues surrounding them, wouldn't it make sense to just use paper?

[DirtyCalvinist]

Electronic voting machines allow for easier customization of text for edge cases, like a need for higher contrast, larger print or another language. A good compromise, I think, would be to have the electronic machines print out a human-readable paper ballot, and that would be counted as ballots used to be. The security/checkability of the old system with the convenience of the electronic interface.

[wbrendel]

Those are good arguments, but are those benefits worth the millions of dollars we spend on these obviously flawed machines? It seems like overkill. Print some ballots with larger print and some in whatever languages are common in your area.

If we do have to use electronic voting machines, I like your idea of it printing a paper ballot rather than tabulating the vote inside the machine.

[trhtrsh]

Millions of dollars is cheap for a properly conducted vote.

[danielweber]

How do you count a smudge instead of a complete filling-in of the oval? You have humans go over them, and people hate that.

Just because you never see this issue doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It's just that the ambiguous ballots don't matter in the vast majority of elections so no one cares.

I'm not saying computers are better than paper. They each have trade-offs.

[evandena]

Bubbles seem stupid to me. It's a lot easier and less subjective on review to fill in an arrow than it is to fill in a bubble. Here's an example ballot of what I'm talking about: http://www.town.oregon.wi.us/uploads/ckfiles/images/nov_06_s...

[morsch]

Here's what our ballots look like: http://www.leinfelden-echterdingen.de/servlet/PB/show/141628...

There's never been any real discussion about it being complicated, confusing or needing any other kind of design change. (Which isn't to say that you couldn't make arguments in that vein.)

[squidsoup]

Similar to our ballots in New Zealand http://www.elections.org.nz/files/sample_ballot_paper_copy.g...

There's not much room for error in this design - it seems to work well for us.

[evandena]

That's much clearer than some of the Scanatron bubble types.

[danielweber]

The arrow-thing is also confusing to people. I guarantee you that election officials have had to make a judgment call about them.

EDIT: Out of 1000 people, how many will get confused by this design? http://www.umsl.edu/~kimballd/polk.pdf

SECOND EDIT: misaligned arrows were also a problem in Florida in the 2000 election

[evandena]

It just seems more natural to fill in a line than to fill in a circle. Your wrist is more stable and less shaky to make a couple straight lines with a marker.

[morsch]

I was going to say you're wrong, but I agree that if I had to fill in dozens or hundreds of items, I'd prefer filling in lines. Your wrist is more stable and it seems like a very quick motion.

However, that kind of efficiency isn't required at all in a ballot. Making a couple of crosses instead of lines isn't going to make a big absolute difference in terms of the entire voting process. You want to maximize other things, first and foremost making it easy to understand and easy to recognize clearly for both the voter and the people/entities who count.

[ommunist]

Electronic voting machines ar much better than paper because they cost MORE!