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New era for voting begins in Palm Beach US by introducing optical scanners
Date: 24/06/2008
Voters in the Palm Beach County area will be introduced to a new form of electronic voting as they will place their voting cards into optical scanners to record the vote electronically. This is a step forward in using technology to increase the accuracy of voting and help manage the paper trails involved.
Most people in the area will remember the controversy over the presidential elections back in 2000 when embarrassingly Palm Beach County failed to correctly count their votes on time. This system is designed to improve that reputation while keeping with the state’s paper trail law, they are using scanners as opposed to touch screens so votes can still be traced back to the original recorded slip.
The trial of this voting system on 24th June is for the election of a new District 3 city commissioner just for residents of West Palm Beach. However in August and November, the whole county will be using the new equipment which has cost the county $8 million for over 1000 “Insight scanners”.
The previous touch screen voting enabled the person a to review their decisions before committing to them, the downside to this was it didn’t have a paper trail to refer to, which is apparently crucial. This was called to be abandoned which saw the investment of optical scanners. The first commissioner election will act as a trial run to project how well the large scale voting will go. But as it is only a small election some staff members are convinced the county elections won’t fair so well, only 1 or 2 scanners will be in use in each voting station which could slow the lines down. People will get to make their votes in a private booth as normal and will then deposit the vote into the scanners, the concern is based around potential queues for the scanners.
There are also some extra benefits involved with the scanning method. They are programmed to reject any voting slip that is not complete, marked incorrectly or if multiple candidates are chosen for one race. The person is then allowed to fix this mistake. These votes will be recorded electronically and stored on the memory cartridges which are taken to the elections office for tabulation when the polls are closed.
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