Mayor Bloomberg continued his campaign against the Board of Elections on his radio show this morning, where he again blasted its process for picking voting machines that use paper ballots instead of an all-electronic version. “I happen to think the machines that they picked, after many years delay, 10 years, and they went back to the chad days,” Bloomberg said.
Well we do not have a chad problem as we are using new optical scanners with paper ballots that you use a pen to fill-in an oval to mark your selection. You also can use a touch screen to make your selections then the machine will create your marked ballot that you then have the optical scanner read to cast your vote.
The Mayor's spokesman Stu Loeser said yesterday the mayor "doesn't believe that literally this involves chads," though since the small-i independent Bloomberg can't vote in party primaries, he didn't get a chance to try the machine himself last month. Today Loeser said the mayor used chads as an example of the fallibility of interpreting markings on paper ballots as opposed to an all-electronic system.
Perhaps it's just a coincidence, then, that the Board of Elections has a crew setting up a demonstration voting machine right outside City Hall this morning, where the mayor can try the new chad-free system himself if he likes.
Even with all the problems I have discussed in prior post about the printing of the ballot and how it has been programmed for over votes, it is still a good system. It will now have hard copy of the ballot to be used for recounts. It will also have mandatory audit counts of a percent of the scanners for each election.
NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!
Michael H. Drucker
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