Ballot, tally errors reveal better vote system still has some kinks -WPB

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 19, 2006

Punch-card voting lives on in Palm Beach County, at least for one Delray Beach voter.

Disdaining instructions to mark an absentee ballot by drawing a line to connect two segments of an arrow, the voter in last week's municipal election instead punched holes next to the names of city commission candidates Nick Loeb and Brenda Montague.

It was one of many flubs by voters and poll workers that emerged from a review of ballots and precinct reports from last week's municipal elections in 16 cities and towns, four years after the county dumped punch cards.

The votes on the improvised punch card ended up getting counted.

Although the punctured ballot couldn't be read by an electronic optical scanner at the county elections office, elections workers figured the voter's intent was clear and made up a duplicate ballot with properly marked votes for Loeb and Montague to feed through the scanning machine.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/pbccentral/content/local_news/epaper/2006/03/19/m1a_VOTING_0319.html

Can we just throw out all the machines and go back to pen and paper? With all the money wasted on these machines that can't count, I could hire a lot of people to hand count votes and come out with a more accurate result.

[DELUSIONAL]

1. self delete

This message was linked by a glitch in DU to the wrong thread.

[bullimiami]

2. this is obviously the most secure and cheapest solution

but the problem is....

it is the most secure and cheapest solution.

-no cronies can make a fortune off of it
-it is difficult to corrupt on a large scale

oh and you have to wait until the votes are counted to know who won.