Voting mechanism in your town?

[aries]

my town uses the trusty old paper ballot, make the mark where you intend to put it and if you make a mistake, erase it. If you have weak hands and can't erase then you don't get a vote.

Any towns using these new electric voting machines?

[d_goddard]

Not Concord nor Manchester.

[dawn]

Winchester has paper ballots that you mark with a black marker then feed it into an AccuVote optical scanner machine. Ballots with write-ins kick off to the side (or something like that). They are supposed to run tests on the machine to make sure it is programmed correctly. In the March election, Swanzey's machine was not programmed properly and one of the candidates (I believe a winner) asked for a recount due to thinking that the numbers looked strange.

Hinsdale and Chesterfield do paper ballots. Although I like the idea of paper ballots MUCH better than any type of machinery, it is still subject to the honesty of the election workers. For example, in Hinsdale, each of the workers had a stack of ballots that they looked through to count up the votes for each candidate which they then read to one of the other workers who added them together (which was double checked by another worker). Who would know if worker A gave the wrong totals for the candidates in their stack? I am not insinuating that I have any reason to suspect any type of fraud there, but it is certainly possible if someone were dishonest.

I would assume that there is no "perfect" system.

Dawn

[Kat Kanning]

I saw a photo in the Sentinel where they were using some sort of telephone ballot system for handicapped people.

[dawn]

Yup, that was here in Winchester. It has to do with HAVA and is for sight impaired people. They use this special fax/phone to call in to a touch tone voting system. When done, their ballot is faxed to them.

One thing I'm not sure on is how do they keep their ballot "secret" as I wonder if it comes in on different paper than the official ballot?

Also, wonder how a sight impaired person can verify that what is faxed to them is accurate before they turn it in as their official vote?

Dawn

[CNHT]

Yup, that was here in Winchester. It has to do with HAVA and is for sight impaired people. They use this special fax/phone to call in to a touch tone voting system. When done, their ballot is faxed to them.

One thing I'm not sure on is how do they keep their ballot "secret" as I wonder if it comes in on different paper than the official ballot?

Also, wonder how a sight impaired person can verify that what is faxed to them is accurate before they turn it in as their official vote?

Dawn

They use Diebold machines which have a rate of error of 15%

So if you lost your race by a few votes, it's good to have them do a recount, which is done by hand.

[error]

I'd ask for a recount if there was a Diebold machine anywhere in sight, as they are about as secure as Swiss cheese. Not just the touchscreen machines, but the Opti-Scan ones too.

[CNHT]

I'd ask for a recount if there was a Diebold machine anywhere in sight, as they are about as secure as Swiss cheese. Not just the touchscreen machines, but the Opti-Scan ones too.

Yes! I heard they can be corrupted using a cell phone.

And, with such low voter turnout, with people losing by 9 and 10 votes, a hand count can easily turn an election around.

It's one way to ensure hand counting of paper ballots.

In Dawn's case 195 people had the gumption to go against the other candidates and vote for someone with conviction despite the fact that they ganged up on her.

Kudos to them.