I should clarify the electronic voting that’s going to be used, cause a few of you have commented on what makes a good or bad electronic voting system:
First, an electronic ballot is not the only option here. Most voters will cast a scannable paper ballot, which will be scanned and then dropped into a ballot box for manual count/verification later. The scanner will scan and tally throughout the day, but there’s still a paper trail.
Additionally, there will be an electronic machine for voting. Any voter may cast their ballot using the electronic machine– they don’t have to get permission or anything.
The electronic machine allows voters to use a variety of input and output methods for accessing the ballot, so they don’t have to read it or necessarily hold a pen to mark it, and still maintain their independence and privacy.
The electronic machine will register the vote with the county and spit out a paper-trail ballot stub as well. I do not know if the electronic machine will also issue a paper ballot to go into the countable box– probably not.
It is (probably) not open source.
If it’s a Siebold system, it’s not named that, though I cannot remember the name of it.
It hasn’t been approved by our county yet.
The electronic ballot system is geared towards meeting a federally mandated 100% accessibility goal by 2006. All elections will need some way for any voter with any disability to securely vote in privacy and independently. This is a good goal, but I don’t know that it’s 100% implementable. I mean, we can’t wheel the machine out to the parking lot, so how will our disabled curbside voters cast their ballots? On the marked scannable ballot, but if they also have a manual dexterity or vision disability, perhaps that’s not feasible.
[A curbside voter is one who, for whatever reason, requires their ballot to be brought to them at their car in the disabled parking space. Perhaps they cannot walk far, or do not have their walker with them, or the site may not be as accessible as they would like-- all our sites are as accessible as we can make them now; the accessibility of a site is why we have so many double precincts this time....]
Anyway, I think there are issues that need to be worked out. There is only a small number of voters who need a lot of accommodation, but I am firmly in favor of systems that make it easier for them to vote.