[geeks] I just saw...

[wa2egp at att.net]

> The weakness of the punch-card or ScanTron ballots is that people can
> incompletely mark or punch them, or change their minds with one entry
> partly marked or punched, or vote for multiple candidates, or otherwise
> spoil the ballot.  Personally, I think the obvious solution is perfectly
> simple:  Have an "error-resistant" touchscreen voting machine that
> prints a ScanTron-type ballot, which the voter verifies represents their
> intended vote and then deposits into a ScanTron vote-registering
> machine.  The possibility of voter error is all but eliminated, the
> voter can verify that their ballot was printed correctly, and the paper
> ballots can be easily recounted, either via ScanTron again, or by hand
> as a check.  It's also trivial to do "spot checks" by picking a random
> machine from each precinct, hand-counting the ballots from its bin, and
> verifying that they match the vote totals it recorded.

Sounds good but you forgot one small problem which I have seen in my
job as a teacher....ScanTron is not error proof.  I've seen them
mis-scan numerous times.  Even a correctly marked part with no
erasures or other marks was recorded as wrong.  I no longer use
ScanTron since if I have to check them manually why am I using it
in the first place?  Your basic idea seems sound though.

Bob