THe implementation of electronic voting...

[jimrtex]

Pencil+paper, maybe +magnetic scanning machine=best system.

How does this work when you have a 100 different races on the ballot, and dozens of different ballot combinations in a single county?  How do you make sure that voters get the correct ballot, especially for early voting?

[jimrtex]

Pencil+paper, maybe +magnetic scanning machine=best system.

How does this work when you have a 100 different races on the ballot, and dozens of different ballot combinations in a single county?  How do you make sure that voters get the correct ballot, especially for early voting?

100 races on the ballot is not a great situation for most voters. Chicago has situations that approach this with races to elect and retain judges tacked on the end of the ballot. The voters and press routinely complain.

I just counted.  It was only 96 in 2006:

Straight Ticket.
US Senator
US Representative

Governor
Lt. Governor
Attorney General
Comptroller
Land Commissioner
Ag Commissioner
RailRoad Commissioner

Supreme Court 5 judges
Court of Criminal Appeals 3 judges

State Senator
State Representative

Appeals Courts Judges 10

County Judge
County Clerk
County Treasurer

District Judges 37

County Law Judges 23

County School Trustee 2

Justice of Peace

But even if they did away with all the judges (or even just their election), there would still be all the combinations of races, which are mainly due to the combination of state senate, state representative, US representative, county commissioners districts, and JP districts.

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Can you guarantee the print quality?  In Texas, most early voting is in person.

[jimrtex]

Can you guarantee the print quality?  In Texas, most early voting is in person.

I've worked in non-election events, where people checked in to get a form. With two (or three) networked computers and two printers, we never had a problem getting a custom-printed form to each person.

In the case of the optiscan voting it would not be hard to have the scanned part pre-printed, and then just add the ballot choices on the side column as needed by the individual voter. It's no worse, and probably better, than a printed vote slip at the end of a voter's use of an electronic voting machine.

What do you mean by a side column?

[jimrtex]

Internet voting? WTF?

Estonia allowed voting over the internet in its most recent election (just a couple of weeks ago). IIRC it was the first national election worldwide to do so.

Texas permits voting by astronauts on the ISS.

[jimrtex]

What do you mean by a side column?

A typical ballot could have two columns of offices. For each office there are a number of candidates and ovals to mark one's choices. In the column the candiadates names appear on the left side and the voting ovals on the right. It is possible to leave some of the names for races off the ballot if it varies by precinct in the county. Those names can be printed on a generic ballot for the voter during check-in. The printing shouldn't interfere with the scanned ovals.

How would you ensure that I got the right combination of US representatives, state board of education, state senators and representatives, county commissioners, constables, and JPs on my ballot?

In many cases, the district offices are for 4 years, with staggered terms, so I may or may not vote for a state senator, for example, based on my precinct.  There are also provisions for removing uncontested races from the ballot.

How would you check for undervotes or overvotes?

How large of ballot paper is required for 100 races?