Before Washington state switched to all-mail voting, it used mark-sense paper ballots. When the voter put them into the ballot box, it scanned them immediately, and rejected them immediately if there was something wrong with them (such as an unreadable mark or votes for more than one candidate). When polls closed, they reported their counts immediately, so results would be known within minutes, unless the mail-in ballots were thought likely to change the results (which happened occasionally). As you say, that was a very good system.
Now we have all-mail voting, which is also good. Sending the instant-count ballot boxes to other states that still have in-person voting would improve many states' voting systems, and put our old machines to practical use.
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Date: 2012-03-18 12:02 am (UTC)Before Washington state switched to all-mail voting, it used mark-sense paper ballots. When the voter put them into the ballot box, it scanned them immediately, and rejected them immediately if there was something wrong with them (such as an unreadable mark or votes for more than one candidate). When polls closed, they reported their counts immediately, so results would be known within minutes, unless the mail-in ballots were thought likely to change the results (which happened occasionally). As you say, that was a very good system.
Now we have all-mail voting, which is also good. Sending the instant-count ballot boxes to other states that still have in-person voting would improve many states' voting systems, and put our old machines to practical use.