The closeness of the 2000 presidential election, especially in the state of Florida, has drawn attention to the importance of voting anomalies caused by ballot design, voting technology, and voter errors.
The legislation approved on Thursday allows for the use of touch-screen machines for voters with disabilities until 2012, when paper-ballot technology for those voters will be required.
"The toughest thing I run into when I try to sell new balloting technology is administrators who say, 'Why should I change?
The problem of badly designed ballots — which affects all kinds of voting technology, from paper ballots to electronic machines — is likely to be particularly acute this fall.
The lists also include recounts, flaws in voting technology, absentee ballots, fraud, intimidation and terrorism.
Using indicators ranging from wait times at the polls and voter turnout to problems with absentee ballots, voter registration, or voting technology, the EPI provides a nonpartisan, objective measure of how well each state is faring in managing national elections.
Benign neglect has produced an electoral system consisting of antiquated balloting technologies, poorly trained poll workers and poorly kept voter rolls as states have delegated their oversight of elections to county governments.
Whatever the final disposition in the courts, the ballot flap has already had powerful effects, drawing our attention to illegible ballots, spoiled ballots and the antiquated nature of our voting technology.
In the mid-1990s, Brazintroducedcelectronicnic voting technology that reduced residual ballots and consequently expanded de facto enfranchisement.
Forcing people to vote electronically could lead to a rerun of the infamous "butterfly ballot" of 2000, with overly complicated voting technology that disenfranchises voters.
