While mark sense technology dates back to the 1930s and optical mark recognition dates to the 1950s, these technologies were first explored in the context of standardized tests such as college entrance exams. The first suggestion to use
mark sense technology to count ballots came in 1953, but practical optical scanners did not emerge until the 1960s. The Norden Electronic Vote Tallying System was the first to be deployed, but it required the use of special ink to mark the ballot. The Votronic, from 1965, was the first optical mark vote tabulator able to sense marks made with a graphite pencil.
Types of optical scan systems
Marksense systems
The oldest optical-scan voting systems scan ballots using optical mark recognition scanners. Voters mark their choice in a voting response location, usually filling a rectangle, circle or oval, or by completing an arrow. Various mark-sense voting systems have used a variety of different approaches to determining what marks are counted as votes. Early systems, such as the Votronic, introduced in 1965, had a single photosensor per column of marks on the ballot. Most such tabulators used analog comparators that counted all marks darker than a fixed threshold as being votes. The Optech line of scanners developed by Business Records Corporation and sold by both Election Systems & Software and Sequoia Voting Systems is a current example of this technology.
An optical reader is a device found within most computerscanners that captures visual information and translates the image into digital information the computer is capable of understanding and displaying.
An example of optical readers are marksense systems for elections where voters mark their choice by filling a rectangle, circle, or oval, or by completing an arrow. After the voting a tabulating device reads the votes using "dark mark logic", whereby the computer selects the darkest mark within a given set as the intended choice or vote.
Those who are unfamiliar with voting theory are often surprised to learn that voting systems other than majority rule exist, or that disagreements exist over what it means to be supported by a majority . Depending on the meaning chosen, the common "majority rule" systems can produce results that the majority does not support. If every election had only two choices, the winner would be determined using majority rule alone. However, when there are more than two options, there may not be a single option that is most liked or most disliked by a majority. A simple choice does not allow voters to express the ordering or the intensity of their feeling. Different voting systems may give very different results, particularly in cases where there is no clear majority preference.
In 2019, then-Secretary of StateAlex Padilla decertified all the older voting equipment in California and required every county to use systems that count optical scans of mail ballots and encoded ...
But in 2019, then-Secretary of StateAlex Padilla decertified all those voting systems everywhere in the state and forced the counties to buy voting technology that counted optical scans.
... are counted by optical scanners ... So now we have a very cumbersome system of early voting where the ballots are placed in envelopes and sealed, and they will be unsealed and scanned on election day.
But unlike the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) used in the 2010 and 2013 elections or the vote counting machine (VCM) used in the 2016, 2019 and 2022 elections, the new voting machines called ...
Optical scan voting systems and emergency ballot printing This rule proposal requires all elections to be conducted using optical scanning voting systems rather than through voting systems relying on QR codes.
... voting method in which ballots were cast when the voters selected choices on a touchscreen.In 2008, the county changed again to an optical scan system, similar to how votes are cast today, Swan said.
49.99 states that when a write-in vote is cast using an optical scan voting system, the ballot must also be marked in the corresponding space ("oval") in order to be counted ... optical scanning machine.
49.99 states that when a write-in vote is cast using an optical scan voting system, the ballot must also be marked in the corresponding space ("oval") in order to be counted ... optical scanning machine.
A federal trial in Atlanta that began Tuesday is also questioning the security of the voting system. Georgia’s voting ...Optical scanning machines then read the bar code, which counts as the official vote.
Last September, the BLC the use of Dominion’s ImageCast optical scanning machines by March 1 if they met testing certification requirements ... a desire to buy Dominion’s new optical scanning device.
Early voting ran from Saturday Oct ... The Image-Cast Evolution (ICE) is a hybrid voting device from Dominion Voting Systems that combines optical scanning, ballot printing, and vote casting functions in one integrated machine.
In 2019, GA passed a law that switched to 'optical scanning voting systems' which is code sections 21-2-365 through 21-2-379," Fowler continued. "21-2-327(e) is in the code section dealing with 'voting ...
I will look at replacing our current voting machines with Optical scan paper ballot systems or if we continue with our current (DRE) machines I would mandate the machines be equipped with Voter-Verified PaperAudit Trail (VVPAT) printers.
The Argus Press
08 Feb 2024
The Argus Press
08 Feb 2024