What kind of voting mechanism is used at your polling place?

[marmar]

Poll question: What kind of voting mechanism is used at your polling place?

How does your polling place handle voting? At mine (during the 2004 election), it was optical scan machines, where you fill out the ballot SAT-style then stick it into a machine.

Poll result (64 votes)
Touch-screen digital voting machine	(14 votes, 22%)	Vote
Optical scan machine	(32 votes, 50%)	Vote
Hole-punched paper ballot	(1 votes, 2%)	Vote
Paper ballot, but without the punched holes	(4 votes, 6%)	Vote
Other (please describe)	(11 votes, 17%)	Vote
I vote absentee	(2 votes, 3%)	Vote

[SmokingJacket]

1. New York state: lever machines.

They produce a big paper read-out at the end of the night. Prone to error, but relatively safe from fraud. This is the last year for them, however.

[marmar]

2. I forgot about lever machines....That seems so quaint.

But I'd kill for levers over the current crop of machines anyday.

[Rhiannon12866]

25. Me, too. And I'm also in NY State.

I've never voted any other way, and I've voted since I cast my vote for Jimmy Carter.

[readmoreoften]

Me here too. Whoa, we're losing our levers???? /nt

[SmokingJacket]

12. Apparently -- ask your local officials when you go vote. nt

[HockeyMom]

7. Maybe not if you life in Suffolk County

http://www.co.suffolk.ny.us/pressreleases.cfm?ID=1765&d...

[SmokingJacket]

11. Wow -- interesting!

I hope my BOE has heard of this.

[peanutbrittle]

3. Optical in OKC...here is a state by state report *.pdf

http://www.votetrustusa.org/pdfs/electionline/Annual%20...

[marmar]

17. Thanks for the link.

[bigwillq]

4. CT has lever machines.

[Atman]

5. Good old fashioned lever machines. They're iron clad.

To cheat, it has to be done the old fashioned way...turning out "dead" people, or other ways which can be fairly easily investigated (IF we had a press any more). But there is nothing that can be done to the old machines to rig the vote. They're entirely mechanical with redundant counters, visible to anyone at any time.

.

[Homer Wells]

6. Touch screen

but with a paper-print out alongside the screen to verify what you voted.

[Robbien]

8. We have touch screen with paper receipt verification

and if one doesn't want to use the touch screens, there are the optical scan ballots.

[lovuian]

9. I have ESlate Hart Machine and it sucks

No Paper trail and No option for a paper ballot

[marmar]

16. That does suck.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. I voted absentee. Paper ballot for the first time.

Like most Washingtonians. Up 'til now it's been punch cards.

[in_cog_ni_to]

13. We vote on Optical scan machines, but the next town over

votes on touch screens.

[Pastiche423]

14. Mail-in Paper Ballots

[marmar]

22. I like Oregon's approach to voting.

[BlueGirlRedState]

15. Travis County uses e-Slates

I am signed up to be a Election Judge --- I have never even been a poll worker before and now I'm in charge of my very own precinct. I took an hour of ADA training and then four hours of training for judges. The votes are recorded in a JBC machine, a sort of brains of the operation -- in both it's hard drive and a media disk, as well as the individual e-slate. We also went over the provisional ballot, and what to do if the voter has moved, has no voter's registration or other form of ID, doesn't show up on the list of registrars. I'm going to be optimistic here and say it looks like the county (and our County Clerk is a Democratic) really does try hard to make the election as tamper free as possible.

The e-Slates use a wheel to make the selection, and an enter button. I've never felt it was the most user friendly system in the world.

[Touchdown]

18. Older flat panel Sequoia LED console (not touch screen).

About 3X4 ft, with a red curtain on a shower rod. Has a plastic overlay, where a large paper with descriptions/candidates listed, and holes for the red lights to shine through, is inserted in it. Pressure buttons and LEDs register our choices. All choices are made, then there's a big button on the bottom of the panel to register the vote. You're done if you push this before your done choosing, and we're warned about it ever election. No paper trail, but they've been around ever since I moved to Denver in '97. No images in Google, just the new touch screens.

[Swamp Rat]

19. Same here n/t

[LeftyMom]

20. es&s optical scan

I'm reasonably okay with optical scan (because hand counting out here in the land of a million ballot initiatives is not going to happen) but the es&s part makes me nervous. Still, there's a paper record, which beats the hell out of the vapor vote machines the next county over.

[marmar]

21. Agreed. I like them better than the touch-screen scam machines...

but, I'm not completely at ease with optiscans either.

[Odin2005]

23. optical scanner.

You fill out the ballot by using a pen with a special ink to connect 2 lines by the canidate's name. I like it because it's simple, no hanging chads, badly filled in circles, or rigged electronic machines.

[tyedyeto]

24. Optical scan here in AZ but...

there is an issue on this year's ballot to have ALL elections in the future be 'vote by mail' only.

[Generic Brad]

26. Diebold optical scanner

Should I be worried?

[LSK]

27. mostly optical scanning but they were trying out a touch screen

There was only one touch screen system there in the primaries.

In 04 it was all optical.