Florida moving to Optically Scanned Paper Ballots

~~DudeBoyz~~ · Feb 2, 2007, 05:49 AM

I think this guy makes a lot of sense.

These paper ballots, where you fill in the little oval with a dark circle and then scan the ballots with an optical reader - they actually work really well.

No hanging chads, no worry about hackers or lame GUI interfaces, etc. Just good old paper and pen. Nice...

http://www.sptimes.com/2007/01/31/St...ouch_scr.shtml

Quote:

TALLAHASSEE — Eager to end six troublesome years of touch screen voting in Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist wants every county to switch to paper ballots by 2008.

Crist will ask the Legislature to spend more than $30-million to replace touch screens with an optical scan system that allows a voter to mark an oval next to a candidate’s name before slipping a ballot into an electronic reader — the same way absentee ballots are cast.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Feb 3, 2007, 12:40 AM

no need to worry about hackers on closed nextork systems either... electronic touch screen voteing is probably the most accurate way to do it... no need for recounts, you can't mess up either. paper a all just monkies up the system....

~~DudeBoyz~~ · Feb 3, 2007, 01:10 AM

Optical Scanning with those Oval Circle paper ballots is very tried and true technology. It's been the most reliable format for many years now, and I do applaud his decision to just throw out the junk that didn't work and say "Hey, we know this works, so screw the high-tech lobby - let's go with what works."

Brave decision from a financial standpoint too - admitting that all that money was wasted.