Comments on: Paper Ballots Save Time

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 01:40:58 +0000

And btw, Michael, I was a geek in one of my former lives, but a kind of Bill Joy geek as far as technology goes.

I have no idea what that means.

My country in central Florida has been using optical scan since before I could vote, and I was in and out in 10 minutes, and that was only because I took my 4 year old son in with me and explained to him what we were doing. There was no line to either get my ballot, or turn it in.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:42:18 +0000

And btw, Michael, I was a geek in one of my former lives, but a kind of Bill Joy geek as far as technology goes.

By: Steve Plunk

Steve Plunk — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 23:13:08 +0000

With vote by mail paper ballots we here in Oregon have solved the problem of long lines and voter turnout. So far no complaints.

It's interesting that both liberals and conservatives like paper ballots. It warms the heart to see such bipartisan behavior.

By: William d'Inger

William d'Inger — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 22:39:34 +0000

Gee, we've had electric/electronic voting machines here in Louisiana for so long that I can't remember when they first came into use. It's never been a problem as far as I now. Since the state is not known for cutting edge technology, I have no idea why big states can't get it right. This morning there were plenty enough machines available that I zipped through in 10-12 minutes.

By: just me

just me — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:47:06 +0000

I agree. The states with machines I have lived in have had hours long waits. The states with paper or optical scan have never been longer than 30 minutes.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:15:55 +0000

That's funny, because it was the gee-whiz tehno-geeks that were the most out-spoken against touch screen voting

Who said I was blaming the geeks? It was the nontechno-geeks who pushed for their adoption. That's where the gee-whiz factor comes in.

By: Ugh

Ugh — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:59:42 +0000

I'll go with Michael's marketing point and also speculate that it was an overreaction to the whole "hanging-chad" business in Florida in 2000 that morphned into "paper = bad".

By: Steven Taylor

Steven Taylor — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 19:19:09 +0000

because it was the gee-whiz tehno-geeks that were the most out-spoken against touch screen voting

Indeed. Really, anyone who knew anything about it said that optical scan was best. Part of it was, as you suggest, marketing, but the technophilia was felt, I woud argue, by legislators who wanted to show in the post-2000 era that they were getting the latest and greatest tech. Heck, I've been grousing about this for at least half a decade (see here and here, for example).

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:56:32 +0000

Because we live in a gee-whiz, technorgasm age, is why.

That's funny, because it was the gee-whiz tehno-geeks that were the most out-spoken against touch screen voting. Touch screens were selected because they were the best marketed, no other reason.

By: sam

sam — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:53:43 +0000

Paper ballots are cheap, easy to understand, fast, and keep a permanent record. Electronic machines are expensive, confusing, cause bottlenecks, and have no paper trail. Why the move from the former to the latter?

Because we live in a gee-whiz, technorgasm age, is why. There's this cult of the electron loose in the land. I used a paper ballot, and it was run through an optical scanner--total elapsed time for me to vote and have it recorded was something like 10 minutes. I think it took me longer to get out of the parking lot.

By: Triumph

Triumph — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 17:41:32 +0000

Why the move from the former to the latter?

It's harder to steal the election with paper ballots.