Electronic voting made election count more accurate

ATLANTA - Georgia&#39;s decision to abandon punch-card and optically scanned ballots for the election last month was greeted with skepticism by some. They feared older voters would find the new touch-screen devices intimidating and that pollworkers would be hopelessly bewildered. <br> <br> Mostly, that didn&#39;t happen. Voters left the polling precincts with high praise for the system, and the headlines the next day focused on the surprising results of the election, not the technology. <br> <br> A month later, there are data to suggest that the $54 million conversion not only was a hit with voters but also produced a more accurate count. <br> <br> Secretary of State Cathy Cox, architect of the conversion, says a key measure shows the system ``made this election more accurate than ever before, with fewer lost votes and a much better opportunity to correctly capture the intent of each and every Georgia voter.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> She based that on a close examination of the ``undervote&#39;&#39; the gap between the number of voters who went to the polls and the number of votes which were counted in the top race on the ballot. <br> <br> Four years ago, of 1,842,585 voters who went to the polls, some 88,674 did not cast a valid ballot in the U.S. Senate race an undervote rate of 4.8 percent. <br> <br> In this year&#39;s U.S. Senate race, the gap was down to about 19,000 an undervote rate of just under 1 percent. <br> <br> Cox said she believes the improvement is a result of a feature in the new system that allows voters to review their ballot choices before they cast their vote and reminds them about races they may have skipped. <br> <br> She said the data also disprove the notion that undervotes are always the result of a voter deciding to skip a race. <br> <br> Cox, a Democrat, terms the conversion ``a resounding success&#39;&#39; and some former skeptics agree. <br> <br> ``The Secretary of State should be commended for a successful rollout,&#39;&#39; said Republican Sen. Eric Johnson of Savannah. ``Good job.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Before the election, Johnson had worried that the rollout was too rushed and said, ``We have the potential for chaos.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Republican attorney Randy Evans, who monitored the technology debut for the GOP, also found little about which to complain. <br> <br> There were a few technical problems. Evans noted that the calibration changed on some machines after several hours of use so that pressing the spot on the screen for a particular candidate did not always register a vote for that person. <br> <br> Voters generally caught those errors when they were given a chance to review their choices, he said, and the calibration problem can be fixed by rebooting the machines. But pollworkers should be trained more extensively about handling such problems, he said. <br> <br> Overall, he said, ``I thought the machines made voting easier, better and faster.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Cox began pushing for the conversion after the 2000 presidential election was stalled for weeks by confusion over the balloting in Florida. Had the election been as close in Georgia, the problems could have been worse, she argued. <br> <br>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2002/12/186790