John Cummins, a hotel doorman, came in, got a ballot, marked it and in less than a minute was on his way back to work.
"For people who have never been able to vote independently before, this is huge," said Eleanor Birrittella, who taught training sessions on the ballot marking device.
Optical-scan voting is far cheaper, faster in the polling place and produces the best kind of paper trail, a ballot marked by the voter.
Later, the teachers announced the gradewide results: 52 votes for Mr. Obama and 21 for Mrs. Clinton (with one ballot, marked for both, disqualified).
Miguel A. DeGrandy, a lawyer for the Republican Party, requested that the board allow his team to view both sides of every ballot during the recounting and have every contested ballot marked and set aside for use as evidence in court proceedings.
The board debated at length when a partially punched ballot would be counted as an acceptable vote and when a ballot marking would be considered too ambiguous and therefore invalid.
It is easier, Mr. Bartlett said, for elections officials doing hand counts to decide whether a ballot marked with a pen should be counted than to decide whether a partially punched card should be.
Mr. Rivera filed a photograph from the Ramirez houses that showed a sample ballot marked with a vote for Ms. Arroyo, which he said was taped to a wall inside the polling place, as well as a photograph of a car parked outside; Mr. Rivera said the car displayed a poster for Ms. Arroyo and blared a message supporting her from loudspeakers.
Each voter gets one ballot, marks it, and puts it in the box.
