TexasCHLforum.com

My county (Caldwell) uses a system like this already and I liked it when I saw it this year. When I went in, I was asked to choose a ballot at random from a small stack. The ballots were all blank except for the judge's signature on them. I picked one and the judge ran it through the computer that checked me in. It printed some kind of code on it. I don't know what the code contained other than my voting precinct. I then went over to the other voting terminals. I put the paper ballot in it and the terminal brought up the races I could vote in. I went through the electronic ballot and voted, then verified the votes. When I said it was good, it printed the votes on the paper ballot, in plain English. I took the completed ballot over and put it in a third computer which read and tallied the ballots and kept the paper one.

This lets you verify the voting while you are doing it and count the votes pretty quickly. Since the ballot is printed with just your votes on it, and in a standardized font, the computer can read them quickly and easily. It also means there is a very clear paper trail that can be recounted if necessary.

I only came up with two minor flaws in the system. The first is that I am confident that the system can tie my ballot back to me. I did not look closely at the ballot to see what the doing looked like at first because I did not realize how it worked (this was the first time using this system for me). It may not tie the ballots to the voters, but it certainly has the potential. If you are a big fan of secret ballots, this is a real concern.

The second flaw is more of a suggestion. If the voting terminal had a roll of paper in it to print on, it could print a copy of my ballot for me to keep if I wanted to. This way I could verify my voting later if I wanted to. I did not think of this as a flaw until I was talking with a friend at work about it and he suggested it. It would make a lot of people more confident in the system if they went home with a copy of how they voted.