Let me go out on a limb and argue that one legacy of Florida 2000 is that public opinion probably favors the retention of some type of paper trail when one votes.

My argument is that while electronic voting  is easier, voters see an ontological reality (my words) in paper ballots that can be read, examined and handled.  The same is not true with other types of ballots.  After 2000, paper is real.

David Schultz, Professor
Hamline University
Graduate School of Public
Administration and Management
MS-A1740
1536 Hewitt Avenue
St. Paul, Minnesota 55104
651.523.2858 (voice)
651.523.3098 (fax)

<smulroy@memphis.edu> 09/24/02 10:48AM >>>

I'm not sure I understand why paper ballots would be more appropriate 
for single transferable vote systems than they would be for plurality 
voting.  I would think that the vote tranfers are sufficiently 
complicated that the use of a computer tabulation would really speed 
things along.  Conversely, plurality counting is simple enough that it 
could be done relatively easily and quickly by hand using paper 
ballots.  What am I missing? 

----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Round <T.Round@mailbox.gu.edu.au>
Date: Monday, September 23, 2002 5:45 pm
Subject: Re: paper ballots 

Addendum to Graeme's post: The Australian Capital Territory (our 
smallest 
jurisdiction in both population and area -- constitutionally 
equivalent to 
Washington DC, but socio-economically equivalent to Cambridge, 
Massachusetts) experimented with touch-screen electronic voting at 
its 
latest Territorial election in October 2001. The initial press 
releases 
were at

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media9901.html 

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media0008.html 

http://www.elections.act.gov.au/media0104.html 

-- although these are old links: I could find more recent details 
if 
anyone's interested.

Like Cambridge, the ACT uses single transferable vote in multi-
member 
constituencies (5, 5, and 7 seats), which makes them even braver 
for 
experimenting with electronic voting -- since one common reason 
offered in 
Australia for keeping to paper ballots, apart from cost, is that 
all our 
jurisdictions use preferential voting in some form. Voting 
machines as used 
in the USA do seem to simplify voting when a society is using 
first-past-the-post for a number of positions, but adapting them 
to 
preferential systems would be more complicated.

At 12:12 20-09-2002 +1000, Graeme Orr wrote:

Australia too is all paper-ballots.  And we even provide pencils, 

not 

pens, to mark ballots!    The AEC long ago realised the best way 

of 

avoiding Floridian debacles was to stay with the simplest, 

'failsafest' 

technology.       The anti-fraud safeguards, they would say, lie 

in 

systemic reform - eg in having the most independent, 

incorruptible, 

professional and co-ordinated (if not nationalised) electoral 
administration you can achieve.    At least no-one would claim 
Canadian>
(Paper ballots also ensure that the bedrock search for 'the 

intention of 

the voter' remains central.  Australians by and large found it 

hard to 

fathom how US electoral law could deny Gore's plaint, at least if 

he had 

been demanding a manual recount of the whole state - which after 

all was 

the relevant electorate, and not just selected counties).

Graeme Orr
Lecturer, Law
Griffith University
Brisbane  4111
Australia

Rick Hasen <rick.hasen@lls.edu>
Sent by: owner-election-law_gl@majordomo.lls.edu 

20/09/2002 03:42 AM
Please respond to rick.hasen

        To:        "election-law@majordomo.lls.edu" 
<election-law@majordomo.lls.edu>
        cc:
        Subject:        Computers Criticized in Fla. Voting

Here's another call for paper ballots.  Isn't anyone worried 

about the

potential for fraud in the hand counting of all ballots? I know 

Canada>conducts its national elections with paper, but they don't 
have the same

history of voter fraud.