The Hand-Marked Ballot Wins for Accuracy

[R. A. Hettinga]

<http://nytimes.com/2004/09/19/politics/campaign/19ballot.html?pagewanted=print&position=>

The New York Times

September 19, 2004

The Hand-Marked Ballot Wins for Accuracy
By TOM ZELLER Jr.

fter the pandemonium over dimpled and pregnant chads in the 2000 election,
nearly everyone agreed it was time to rethink old vote-counting ways. But
the stampede to touch-screen voting was not inevitable.

 Another, demonstrably more reliable technology was already on the rise:
optical scan voting, introduced in some parts of the country in the late
1970's. By the 2000 election, optical scanning - which involves marking a
paper ballot that is ultimately read and counted by a computer - had
overtaken all other voting methods as the most common way to vote in the
United States. This year, optical scan systems will be used in more than 45
percent of all counties, according to Election Data Services, a political
consulting firm in Washington.

 After the 2000 election, a study by the Voting Technology Project, a joint
effort by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, took a hard look at the nation's voting systems.
Using a measure of what they called "residual votes" - overcounting,
undercounting or not counting votes for any reason - researchers found that
two existing voting methods had produced relatively low error rates in the
last four presidential elections: old-fashioned hand-counted paper ballots
and optical scan systems.

 The study found that the mechanical lever system, which dominated the
market in 1980 and has been in decline ever since, performed considerably
worse. In overall performance, electronic voting - both the older
push-button variety and the newer touch-screen units - performed scarcely
better than punch cards.

 "The immediate implication of our analysis is that the U.S. can lower the
number of lost votes in 2004 by replacing punch cards and lever machines
with optical scanning," the report said. "Touch screens are, in our
opinion, still unproven."

 But election officials who decided to change systems overwhelmingly went
for the touch screens. Compared with about 13 percent of registered voters
in 2000, this year roughly 30 percent of those registered will be asked to
vote on electronic systems. Optical scan systems grew as well, although at
a much slower pace: from about 30 percent of registered voters in 2000 to
just under 35 percent this year, according to Election Data Services.

 The Caltech/M.I.T. study said that the newest electronic systems had great
potential, but were plagued by a variety of problems, like loose cables and
confusing interfaces.

 Change is natural, said Stephen Ansolabehere, a political science
professor at M.I.T. and a member of the study team. But "optical scanning
is a pretty good interim solution for the next five or 10 years,'' he said.

And then what? Litigators, start your engines: the Internet.

Professor Ansolabehere is among those who predict that myriad security
obstacles will one day be overcome and votes will be cast from the nation's
living rooms.

 "I think it's inevitable," he said.

 Copyrigh
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R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'