In some respects, there is no choice. For fear that courts will compel it if they don't act, legislators and other policymakers are likely to see to the prompt replacement of the outmoded voting equipment used in 41 of Florida's 67 counties. Collectively, they accounted for 90 percent of the state's 179,855 blank or spoiled ballots Nov. 7, setting off the 36-day presidential recount drama that gave George W. Bush the presidency by just 537 certified votes, a margin of .009 percent. That election is history, and so too, surely, are the punch cards for which it will be remembered. Gone, along with the punch cards, will be those optically scanned ballots that are counted only at a central location, too late to alert voters to mistakes.
Voters select candidates by filling in ovals or circles with special pens.
The counting machines that scan these ballots can be set to reject mismarked ballots and give the voter another chance. The failure rate averaged much lower than for punch cards or for ballots scanned only at a central location. Its computer memory can accommodate any number of issues, candidates, ballot styles and languages. Other than for absentees, no ballots need to be preprinted or stored. That's a big attraction to large-county supervisors like Iorio, who had to prepare 82 different forms, and Pinellas' Deborah Clark, who had to deal with 40 different combinations of local, legislative and congressional districts.