Officials Defend Punch-Card Ballot

[AmyStrange]

Officials Defend Punch-Card Ballot
Thu Jun 3, 5:26 PM ET
By ERICA WERNER, Associated Press Writer

FROM: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=548&ncid=548&e=7&u=/ap/20040603/ap_on_el_ge/punch_card_ballot
CHICAGO - The much-maligned punch-card ballot got something on Thursday that many election officials were loath to give it in 2000 — respect. Chad or no chad, increasing concern about the security of electronic voting has made the punch cards look pretty good to some — although most of the machines are expected to be retired by 2006.

"Obviously punch-card voting is not the wave of the future ... but perhaps it is not the devil it has been portrayed," Lance Gough, executive director of Chicago's Board of Election Commissioners, told a hearing of a new federal voting commission.

Infamous for the hanging and dimpled chads that bedeviled election officials in Florida in 2000, punch cards are still expected to be used by nearly 19 percent of voters nationwide in November, compared to about 30 percent in 2000, according to Election Data Services Inc.

Some 32 percent of voters will use optical scan machines in November, 29 percent will vote electronically, 13 percent will use lever machines and the remainder will use a mix of options.

[FleshCartoon]

1. I've been very thankful for it myself.

We still have it and I hope that, due to our state's poverty, we keep it for longer than this article suggests most will.