Anyone following the US presidential election results being tallied in Florida might be forgiven for thinking that the United States had slipped back several decades on the technology front. Because of antiquated, non standard voting machines, the American democratic system was at a standstill as the situation in Florida has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.
In the midst of endless lawsuits and politicking, there have been machine counts, machine recounts and manual counts which all seem to signify that a new way of voting might well be in order.
In a country that determines so much of the world's future technologies, the two political parties have been fighting over whether indentations in paper ballots (pregnant, dimpled or swinging door chads in the lingua franca of American balloting) count as real votes.
It might be funny if it wasn't for the fact that this determines who will become the most powerful elected official in the world.
Traditionally, when casting their votes, US voters have used lever machines which have been around since the turn of the 20th century, punch cards which are a 60-year-old technology and optical scanning of ballots which date from 1970s.
The use, design and purchase of voting systems is usually determined by the secretary of state in each of the 50 states and on a county by county basis.
Each county is responsible for purchasing and maintaining its voting machines. This has normally been a low budget priority for many counties hence the age of many of the voting machines.
Megan Ptacek who voted at a polling booth on the upper east side of Manhattan said she used "ancient metal machines that had levers. You moved the lever one way, flipped a switch for each vote and then moved the lever back again."
No election official explained to her how to use the machines, she said. Her previous experience voting occurred in her native Illinois where she used the voting systems that were used in Florida - the so-called butterfly ballots.
"It looked like a book which had a strip down the middle with dots that you poked out. It was a better system than Manhattan's but the whole process should be electronic, it makes no sense that it's not," she said.
In New York City, Mr Philip McGauran, a first-time voter, said pulling levers on the voting machine was "like pulling a guillotine".
However, there are many counties that use more modern electronic balloting methods. Advanced electronic voting equipment is available and electronic voting systems are on their way to replacing paper voting sheets. These computerised systems could be easier to use and more efficient than traditional paperbased systems.
Hart InterCivic, an Austin, Texas-based company which provides election services and products around the country, unveiled its eSlate 3000 electronic voting device in June.
The eSlate, which is a modified portable computer that resembles a personal digital assistant, was used during the recent presidential elections.
According to Mr Bill Stotesbury, vice-president of marketing at Hart InterCivic, it was used successfully in Tarrant County (Fort Worth), Texas; Summit County (Breckenridge), Colorado and Arapahoe County (Denver), Colorado. The system was also available for hands-on demonstrations for voters in Fort Bend County, Texas.
After using eSlate, Hart surveyed about 2,000 voters. About 91 per cent said they found it easy to use and 97 per cent expressed their interest in voting on electronic voting systems in the future.
The eSlate computer has a large display screen and a simple set of controls.
Users scroll through their ballot choices with a dial. The user places the cursor over his preferred candidate and presses a cast ballot button to record his votes. ESlate does not allow more than one vote per race and prompts voters if they leave a blank space. These votes are then stored on a removable storage device and can be printed or sent electronically to a central counting station. Blind or visually impaired people can add a speech synthesizer to the device. An eSlate unit costs $2,500 and the add-on synthesier is another $1,000.
Hart's eSlate system, which comprises a variety of software applications, streamlines the complicated balloting and tabulation process by having an Internet voting and voter registration component.
During the presidential election, votes cast on the eight eSlate machines used by Summit County were tabulated in less than 10 minutes. The tabulated votes from almost 5,000 voters in Arapahoe County showed there were no instances of overvoting (a voter casting more than one vote in a race), a major area of concern in Florida.
Also, on November 7th, in some parts of California, Florida and Virginia, some voters used an electronic system developed by another Texas company called Global Election Systems of McKinney. Its AccuVote-TS system is a voter-activated touch screen system with 12 key pads like the push buttons on a telephone. It can also be adapted for audio use with a headset. The AccuVote uses a smart card as the voter interface.
It permits voters to view and cast their votes by touching target areas on an electronically generated ballot. Each unit provides a direct entry computerised voting application that automatically records and stores appropriate ballot information and results. At the end of the voting period, the system can print precinct totals to be included as part of the permanent record and relay the results to a host computer.
