Point and Click Voting
Americans live in a country that is heavily dependent on millions of computers. Obviously, you are aware of the impact of computers, since you are reading this over the Internet, but computers do more than just connect us to the World Wide Web. Almost everyone uses an ATM for a good portion of their bank transactions. Computers installed on gas pumps allow us to pay at the pump. We rely on computers to help us perform many everyday tasks, but there are still things we don't trust computers to do. And one of those tasks is voting. As the 2000 election plays out, many political pundits and techies argue that electronic voting, or e-voting, will prevent a lot of the problems that have put the presidential election on hold. The advantages of e-voting include:
Streamlining the voting process.
Preventing ballot errors and confusion.
Increasing national voter turnout.
Most voters already use some sort of computerized voting system. Punch cards, like the ones used in the disputed Palm Beach County, Fla., precincts, are tallied by a computerized counting machine that detects the punched holes in a ballot. This form of voting has been used since the 1960s. Optical scanners are used for those voting systems that use paper and pen, to detect pen marks made on a ballot. Optical scan vote counters are not as old as punch card technology, but they seem somewhat archaic compared to other technologies that we use everyday. For many, e-voting is the next logical step for elections.
In the punch card system, if you feed the same 100 ballots through the counting machine seven times, you get seven different vote counts. These inaccuracies are a problem when you are counting millions of ballots, and thousands or hundreds of votes can decide the election outcome. There are two e-voting technologies available that could streamline this process, and make counting ballots as easy as hitting a key on a computer keyboard.