The point of using voting machines

Posted Oct 29, 2009 10:50 UTC (Thu) by tdz (subscriber, #58733)
In reply to: The point of using voting machines by rfunk
Parent article: Sequoia to release voting system software

> 1. They can make the process more simple for a lot of people, especially in
> the US where there can be many races with many candidates each, and often
> scenarios of "vote for 3 here but vote for 1 here".

But people have to understand this in either case. At best, the machine can help to not make ballots unintentionally incorrect.

One user here mentioned the use of different languages, which might be a point for voting machines. On the other hand, a lot of people have problems with using a computer (in contrast to pen and paper). So I don't really buy that machines make voting easier in general.

> 2. They can make it easier and faster to get a count of the results, giving
> results within hours rather than days or weeks.

This point is absolutely not convincing.

I live in Germany, where almost all elections are done with pen and paper and counted by hand. The process and organization of elections here is highly decentralized.

Elections are generally on Sundays and all polling places always close at 6 pm. A forecast is available at 6:01. At the latest at 7 pm there is a preliminary result that is close to the fraction of a percent to the final result.

Personally, I took part in helping with elections and counting (by hand) several times. We had several hundred ballots with up to 3 votes each, like the one you describe in the point 1 above. We were 10 to 20 people and it only took an evening to count them. We actually counted at least twice to ensure the correctness of the result.

> 3. They can make it possible for people with various handicaps (especially
> blindness or near-blindness) to vote privately without assistance.

Depends on the person and the handicap.

Regards, Thomas