| Used in Cuyahoga County |
|
|
|
|
|
Punch cards |
Touchscreens |
Central-count optical scan |
Precinct-based optical scan |
|
| Used in Cuyahoga County | 1981 to 2005 |
May 2006 to November 2007
|
March 2008
|
August 2008 to present |
| How we voted | Voters stuck a punch-tool through holes between ballot pages, poking out holes in a card. | Voters selected their choices by touching a computer screen, then checked a printout to confirm their vote. | On paper ballots, voters filled in ovals with black ink. Ballots were counted by high-speed scanners downtown. | On paper ballots, voters fill in ovals with black ink. Ballots go through scanners at the polling place that warn voters if they overvoted. |
| The Promise | Easy counting by machine. Cards made recounts easier than old booths with levers. | More reliable: won’t let people overvote, no messy marks on paper to puzzle officials. | Paper ballots protected voting and recounts from equipment failures. Simpler for poll workers. | Better protection against losing votes. Counting should go faster, as long as poll workers keep good track of ballots and scanner memory cards. |
| The Reality | Always lost about 2 percent of votes cast because it was too easy to screw up a ballot (remember hanging chads?). Congress provided massive grants to replace them after the 2000 Florida election catastrophe. | Computers and memory cards confused poll workers. Fragile machines broke down. Paper records for recounts folded, spindled, mutilated. Vote-counting servers crashed. Security flaws exposed. Former chairman of manufacturer, Diebold, inspired deep mistrust by fundraising for Republican Party. | Counting took until 5:30 a.m., since 406,000 ballots had to go through 15 machines. With no defense against overvoting — filling in two ovals by mistake — the lost-vote problem returned. | To be determined. |
| The Cost | N/A | $21 million: $14 million in federal funds, $7 million in county funds | $1.5 million in county funds (one-time rental) | $13.4 million in county funds |
| As trustworthy as | The Indians bullpen | A used-car salesman | A rent-a-cop | A real cop |
Related Articles
