the pencil wins
some analysis of the election in florida… for your bemusement as we approach inauguration day.
Paper and pencil a winner in ’04 election [south florida sun-sentinel, january 16, 2005]Florida’s touch-screen voting machines performed better in the Nov. 2 presidential election than they did in the March primary, but were still outmatched by older voting devices that use pencil and paper ballots, according to a South Florida Sun-Sentinel analysis.
…
Of 5 million votes analyzed from the November election, there were 18,555 examples of flawed or unregistered presidential ballots. Of 2.7 million votes on touch screens reviewed, 11,824 ballots had no vote registered for president. Of 2.3 million votes on optical-scan machines, 6,731 ballots were not recorded or flawed.
hmmm. what does diebold (one manufacturer of electronic touch-screen voting machines that gets a lot of space here) have to say about undervoting?
Q: Can you under-vote using the AccuVote-TSX terminal?
A: The AccuVote-TSX touch-screen ballot station offers a summary page to the voter once the voter has sequenced through the entire ballot. The summary page will indicate via a distinct color which races have been under-voted. A touch of the screen on the under-voted race will cause the AccuVote-TSX to return the voter to the under-voted race within the ballot and allow the voter to complete the voting process. A voter can also step back and forth through the ballot, changing any selection until the ballot is “cast.” The system will allow an under-voted ballot to be cast if it was the voter’s intent not to vote in a race.
so all the undervotes on the diebold machines (at least) are intentional. by design. anyone want to reconcile this?