What To Expect Some people are reluctant to vote because they don't know how. To bridge this comfort gap, members of local Leagues often go into schools, shopping malls or other locations and demonstrate how voting procedures work in their community. Once universal, today paper ballots are used by only 1 percent of voters in this country, primarily in small communities and rural areas, and quite often for absentee balloting in other jurisdictions. With paper ballots, voters privately record their choices by marking the boxes next to their candidate or issue choices and then drop the marked ballot in a sealed ballot box. In this system, the name of each candidate or ballot issue choice is assigned to a particular lever on the front of the machine.
Voters pull down selected levers to indicate choices.
In the 1960s more than half of the votes in the United States were cast on these machines. Voters punch holes in the cards with a supplied punch device to indicate their candidate or ballot issue choices. After voting, voters may place the ballot in a ballot box, or the ballots may be fed into a computer vote-tabulating device at the precinct. Many jurisdictions are now switching from punchcards to more advanced marksense or DRE systems. Marksense Marksense systems employ a ballot card on which candidates and issue choices are preprinted next to an empty rectangle, circle, oval or incomplete arrow, which voters fill in to mark their choices.