Reply #12: Point is you have to go back earlier than just touch screens

[many a good man]

Punch cards go back how long? 50s or 60s? In the early days they just counted the number of holes punched on each line. One line = one candidate.

My big question is WHEN WAS MANDATORY BALLOT ROTATION LEGISLATED? I would guess that it was about the same time when cheap computer software first gave us the ability to extend the capability of the machine punch card tabulators.

Studies were done that showed that a candidate's position on the top of the ballot gave a built-in bias. Legislation was enacted to counteract this natural human tendency. Before this time candidate's names were simply listed alphabetically, or by party affiliation.

In Ohio 2004 the vast majority of ballots were punch card. Don't let the controversy swirling around Diebold-style touch screen e-voting machines become a red herring. It is certainly much easier to hack these advanced machines but remember software-based punch card tablulators are also vulnerable. Just because they produced paper output (that wasn't properly recounted) doesn't mean they shouldn't be scrutinized!