There are several different kinds of electronic and mechanical voting systems. Some of them use technologies developed specifically for electoral purposes. Electronic or mechanical voting is used widely in the United States and to a lesser extent in a small number of other countries around the world.
The main types of electronic or mechanical voting systems include:
- Mechanical voting/tabulation systems
- Electronic tabulation systems
- Direct recording electronic systems
Mechanical voting/tabulation systems
Mechanical lever voting machines are now considered 'old' technology, and they are gradually being phased out of use. Used for the first time in a United States election in Lockport, New York in 1892, by the 1960s they were used by more than half of the US voting population. In the 1996 US Presidential election they were used by 20.7% of voters.
On a typical lever voting machine, a lever is assigned to each candidate. On entering the voting compartment, the voter pulls a handle that activates the machine and closes a privacy curtain. The voter then pulls levers to indicate choices. The machines are designed to prevent the voter from voting for more choices than are permitted. When the voter has finished voting and opens the privacy curtain with the handle, the levers are reset for the next voter.
As each lever is activated, counter wheels within the machine are turned to indicate one vote. At the close of the polls the positions of the counting wheels in each machine indicate the number of votes cast for each candidate.
Another form of mechanical voting system is used in Gambia, where marbles are placed in a machine to indicate votes for candidates. The machine calculates the number of marbles allocated to each candidate.
Punchcard voting/tabulation systems
With punchcard systems, voters punch holes in cards using a supplied punch device, to indicate votes for their chosen candidates. After voting, the voter may feed the card directly into a computer vote tabulating device at the polling place, or the voter may place the card in a ballot box, which is later transported to a central location for tabulation.
Two common types of punchcards used in the United States are the 'Votomatic' card and the 'Datavote' card. With the Votomatic card, the locations at which holes may be punched to indicate votes are each assigned numbers. The number of the hole is the only information printed on the card. The list of candidates and directions for punching the holes are printed in a separate booklet. With the Datavote card, the name of the candidate is printed on the ballot next to the location of the hole to be punched.
Punchcards and computer tally machines were first used in the US for the 1964 Presidential primary election in two counties in the State of Georgia.
Although many US punchcard systems are being replaced by more advanced systems, many voters still use them. Punchcard systems were used by 37.3% of voters in the US 1996 Presidential election.
Machine readable (optical scanning) voting/tabulation systems
There are three main types of optical scanning technologies: Optical Mark Reading (OMR), Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR). For more detail on these technologies see Optical Scanning Systems.
Most machine readable (optical scanning) voting systems use OMR technology. In the United States these are known as 'Marksense' systems.
Voters using machine readable ballots are given a ballot card with the names of candidates printed on it. Next to each candidate a symbol is printed such as a rectangle, circle or incomplete arrow. The voter indicates a choice for a candidate by filling in the appropriate rectangle or circle or by completing the arrow.
After voting, the voter may feed the card directly into a computer vote tabulating device at the polling place, or the voter may place the card in a ballot box, which is later transported to a central location for tabulation.
The computer tabulating device identifies the marks made by voters on the cards and records votes accordingly. The individual votes are recorded in a database and aggregated to give total results.
Marksense systems were used by 24.6% of registered voters in the US 1996 Presidential election. Use of these systems in the US is increasing as older lever and punchcard systems are replaced.
OMR technology has been widely used since the 1970s for a variety of uses, including school and university tests, censuses and lotteries, as well as for voting. OCR and ICR systems, being more complex, less accurate and developed later, have not been extensively used for voting purposes.
OMR systems are well suited to first-past-the-post and list electoral systems, where voters are asked to make simple choices when voting, easily represented by a simple mark. In more complex electoral systems, such as alternative voting systems and single transferable vote systems, where voters are asked to choose candidates by showing sequential preferences, it is more difficult to apply OMR technology. As a result, scanning technology has not been used widely for counting these kinds of ballots. However, the increasing accuracy of ICR may make it a viable technology for these kinds of ballots in the 2000s.
Direct Recording Electronic systems
The increasing sophistication of computer technology towards the end of the 1990s led to the most recent development in the evolution of voting systems: Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems.
Using DRE systems, voters mark their votes directly into an electronic device, using a touch screen, push buttons or a similar device. Where write-in ballots are permissible, an alphabetic keyboard is sometimes provided to allow voters to cast write-in votes.
With DRE systems there is no need for paper ballots. Voting data is stored by the electronic device, on a computer hard disk or a portable diskette, CD-ROM or smartcard. For backup and verification purposes, some systems copy voting data onto more than one storage medium. For example, in Belgium, voting data is written both to a hard disk and to a smartcard issued to the voter. After voting, the voter places the used smartcard in a ballot box. The smartcard can be used as backup should the hard disk copy fail, or as a way of auditing the data recorded on the hard disk.
When the polls close, the data from the various voting locations are amalgamated in a central computer, which calculates the vote totals. Data can be transmitted to the central computer either on removable portable devices such as diskettes, or by a computer network.
Use of DRE systems is mostly confined to the United States, although a DRE system was used in Belgium in the 1990s. In the 1996 Presidential election, 7.7% of voters in the US used some type of DRE system.
In the 1990s, the internet was beginning to be used as a DRE voting method for non-governmental elections. In 2000, the internet was used in a small number of locations in the US for the Presidential primary elections. As internet security and personal identity issues improve, it is likely that use of the internet for DRE voting purposes will expand rapidly in the 2000s.
See Internet for more detail on using the internet for voting and other electoral purposes.
Since the 1990s the telephone has also been used as a type of DRE voting system. Voters are able to record votes directly into computer systems using the key pads on their telephones, and to identify themselves with Personal Identity Numbers (PINs), by following a series of recorded instructions.
The introduction of DRE voting options at locations away from polling places, like internet voting and telephone voting, raises the issue of identifying the voter remotely. See Identification Systems for discussion of this issue.
