Ok I agree paper records of voting should be kept. But all the
psychological denial and RAP conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the fact is
the problems with overvotes, undervotes and spoiled ballots that plagued
Florida in the 2000 election was vastly improved by touch screen voting, this
according to the Miami Herald which also recounted several Florida counties. A
good example of the great improvement is Dade county, which despite higher
voter turnout only discarded 4,227 ballots, compared to the *28,000 ballots*
that were discarded in the year 2000.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10242607.htm?1c

"HERALD ANALYSIS
Touch screens reduced spoiled ballots

BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI


In November 2000, the voting precinct at Lillie C. Evans Elementary School in
Liberty City was among the worst embarrassments in a dysfunctional presidential
election: of 868 punch-card ballots, 113 were discarded as ''overvotes'' or
''undervotes,'' the worst rate in Miami-Dade County.

What a difference four years and $25 million for new voting equipment make.

When 755 people voted for president this month on touch-screen machines at
Precinct 255 at the school, there wasn't a single chad in evidence, hanging or
otherwise.

In fact, there wasn't a single discarded vote.

While certainly exemplary, the radical improvement at Precinct 255 was not
unusual. It's the new norm in Florida voting, once the object of national
ridicule.

A review of election results in a dozen Florida counties showed that the
millions of dollars spent on new voting equipment since 2000 drastically
reduced formerly scandalous rates of spoiled ballots.

In 2000, thousands of votes on antiquated punch cards were lost when chads were
left hanging or voters pinched but didn't pierce ballots. Many other votes were
discarded because voters failed to fully darken the ovals or otherwise
mismarked optical-scan ballots and didn't get a chance to redo them.

In some places, discard rates reached 12 percent.

This year, discard rates were often cut to half of 1 percent or lower, in some
cases as little as a quarter percent. That's almost entirely thanks to new
technology, such as touch-screen machines that do not allow for overvotes --
when voters choose two candidates for a single office -- and limit undervotes
by alerting voters when they don't make a choice in a race.

IN DADE COUNTY

Take Miami-Dade, where 28,000 presidential ballots went uncounted in 2000
because they were under- or overvoted. With new touch screens, that dropped to
4,227, even as the number of ballots cast rose by 125,000. And most of those
discarded were overvoted paper absentee ballots.

Even more dramatic was the effect on undervotes: reduced from 10,750 in 2000 to
460. Now, undervotes are likely the voters' choice not to cast a ballot in a
certain race, not the result of a system malfunction, elections officials and
experts say.

Broward County, which also replaced punch cards with touch screens, also
substantially reduced discarded ballots, from 14,600 in 2000 to 2,852.

Or look at North Florida's Gadsden County, among the state's poorest counties.
Four years ago, more than 2,000 optical-scan ballots, or 12 percent of the
total cast, were discarded as under- or overvotes.

This year, only 110 ballots were spoiled.

The difference? The county spent $160,000 to equip its 25 precincts with
optical-scan tabulators, into which voters feed their ballots. If the machine
finds more than one vote in a race, or can't find any votes at all on the
ballot, the sheet is returned to the voter, who can correct any errors.

In 2000, by contrast, the ballots were shipped to a central reader, and voters
had no opportunity to fix mistakes -- a set-up now banned by law.

Another critical component, Gadsden Supervisor of Elections Shirley Knight
said, was revving up voter education. After acquiring the precinct readers,
elections workers hauled them around to schools, supermarkets and even
residents' yards for hands-on demonstrations.

''I was shocked at how much better it was than what we saw four years ago,''
said Kurt Browning, veteran elections supervisor in Pasco County, which
switched from punch cards to touch screens.

In Pasco, overvotes dropped from 2,141 in 2000 to just 136 -- all of those on
paper absentee ballots -- even as the number of ballots cast rose from nearly
147,000 to 192,000. Undervotes dropped from 1,776 to 857.

What the touch-screen systems and the precinct optical-scan readers have done,
Browning and other elections officials said, is virtually eliminate the
questions about voter intent that arose with hanging or ''pregnant'' chads or
improperly filled-in ovals on optical-scan ballots.

The changes are a direct result of the flawed 2000 presidential election, in
which elections workers conducting recounts were forced to scrutinize pregnant
chads on punch cards and optical-scan ballots unreadable by machine because
voters didn't properly fill in the ovals or instead circled them, among other
errors.

A panel created by Gov. Jeb Bush zeroed in on two major problems: The
antiquated punch cards in use in the state's most populated areas, including
South Florida; and, less obviously, the 15 counties equipped with modern
optical-scan systems but lacking tabulating machines at the polling places.

Those counties, mostly small and rural, had been unable or unwilling to spend
the money to install the precinct tabulators.

In 2001, the Florida Legislature banned punch cards, required precinct
tabulators, and provided state aid for counties replacing or supplementing
their voting systems.

TOUCH SCREENS

Fifteen counties -- representing about half of Florida's population -- moved to
touch screens. Though more expensive than optical scanners, touch-screens have
the advantage of making overvotes impossible and reducing or eliminating
accidental undervoting at polling places.

Those counties also went to electronic scanners for absentee ballots, which
remain susceptible to over- and undervoting.

The other 52 of the state's counties are now equipped with optical-scan
machines at every precinct.

In The Herald review, counties with optical scanners slightly outperformed
those with touch screens.

Osceola and Duval counties, both of which switched from punch cards to optical
scanners, had discard rates around a quarter percent, compared to rates around
a half percent for the touch-screen counties checked.

That's likely because touch-screen systems, while greatly improved since their
introduction, still need refinement in ''human factors'' such as screen layouts
that can sometimes confuse voters, said Douglas Jones, a computer science
professor at the University of Iowa who has served as a consultant to the Dade
Elections Department.

''There are still some residual problems, but I think they're relatively
small,'' Jones said.

Still, he noted, discard rates representing even a half percent of all votes
mean thousands of lost votes on a statewide scale. ''We owe voters better than
this,'' Jones said. ``On the other hand, we're doing better than we were.''

Voter education is one area where significant improvement is still possible,
said Pasco supervisor Browning, noting persisting errors in absentee voting.

The Pasco canvassing board, following routine procedure, counted about 2,500
absentee ballots rejected by scanners because they had been mismarked, but a
hand review showed clear voter intent.

''When you give someone a pen and piece of paper, you're not going to get what
you do on a touch screen,'' Browning said.

But officials say the improvements should restore confidence in voting,
although some issues -- like calls for paper receipts for touch-screen systems
-- remain unresolved.

''We're not going to say everything is perfect,'' said Seth Kaplan, a spokesman
for Miami-Dade elections. ``But we've come a long way.''

Herald staff writer Michael Vasquez contributed to this report. "





Will Miho
NY Music & TV Audio Guy
Audioist / Fox News
"The large print giveth and the small print taketh away..." Tom Waits

D'oh....

"WillStG" wrote in message
...
Ok I agree paper records of voting should be kept. But all the
psychological denial and RAP conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the fact
is
the problems with overvotes, undervotes and spoiled ballots that plagued
Florida in the 2000 election was vastly improved by touch screen voting,
this
according to the Miami Herald which also recounted several Florida
counties. A
good example of the great improvement is Dade county, which despite
higher
voter turnout only discarded 4,227 ballots, compared to the *28,000
ballots*
that were discarded in the year 2000.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/10242607.htm?1c


Without a paper trail and transparency the positive outcome of the article
is pretty much null and void.


--
-Hev
Find Me He
www.michaelROBOTSspringerBEGONE.com

On 24 Nov 2004 05:51:27 GMT, ospam (WillStG) wrote:

Ok I agree paper records of voting should be kept. But all the
psychological denial and RAP conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the fact is
the problems with overvotes, undervotes and spoiled ballots that plagued
Florida in the 2000 election was vastly improved by touch screen voting,

If true, this doesn't mean that concerns about these machines are
unfounded, or that steps should not be taken to make 100% sure that
there can be no funny business or failures with touch-screen voting.
Are you suggesting otherwise?

Ralph Sneed