as to filling out ballots after the fact I’d be very curious about how that would happen. There is a paper record of the number of undervotes. Of course, that computer tally is what is generally used for determining winners. so filling in the ovals after the fact is not beneficial.

No vote would be a nice option. It exists in NJ. Perhaps in other states too.

It’s hard to look at the undervoted ballots and imagine that many of them are not intentional. I understand issues with butterfly ballots, DREs with two screens for a race, or two races on a screen, or ballots with races in two columns. None of those are issues with Champaign County ballots. I have published each and every undervoted Champaign County ballot from November 2006. I’d be curious as to which ones you believe were unintentional.

Mark *all* the choices. I.e. fill out “Yes” and “No” or “Option B” and “Option C” or fill out too many candidates.

That is a much safer option than leaving your choices blank because I have heard stories of having ballots that are left blank later filled out by some insider within an election office for their own preferred candidate, although I suppose the risk of that happening is more so with absentee ballots, depending on procedural safeguards when the ballots are opened.

Ideally, there should be an oval to fill out saying “No Vote” or similar, then you won’t have to worry about the beep.

Since there is no such option today on most ballots (perhaps there is insufficient room on the ballots for that?) and since it is very important to warn most people of undervotes because often it is not deliberate as it is in your case, you really should simple overvote any contest you want to not vote in, as I make a habit of always doing simply to protect my ballot from being illicitly used after I cast it.

Our esteemed State Board of Elections seem to be of the mind-set that not voting for an office is a mortal sin; and everyone should know about it. Let’s hope that they come to their senses and rescind this steaming mass of male bovine fecal material immediately.

There is a solution to this issue: one that gives voters maximum privacy and one that allows votes to be cast on auditable paper ballots. The solution: Ballot Marking Devices. The idea is simple: a voter prepares the ballot on a computerized system; one that also allows voters with disabilities to vote and one that also allows multiple languages.

Preparation of the ballot does not mean casting the ballot. Preparation means preparing an unambiguous paper ballot that is cast separately from the preparation of the ballot. During the preparation of the ballot, the voter can be warned in private if there is an undervote.

I’m sure there are other solutions as well (a scanner in a voting booth dedicated to detecting voter errors).

The use of the term “unambiguous” is chosen carefully. Many handmarked ballots are ambiguous for a variety of reasons — such as the voter’s circling a name or putting an X in a box that should be blackened. Note that in this case, the warning of an undervote ALSO serves as a warning that the ballot is improperly marked.

Actually, many voters object. They’ve told me as much. And you can count me among those people.

It’s disappointing that you would assign a motive to the clerks when I linked directly to our list of concerns. This will present clerks with no more work. I estimate that it will increase the amount of time to do testing by a total of 5 to 10 minutes. Our programming time will increase by about 1 minute. As to the vendors, they will be more than happy to charge various clerks for the added expense of programming the election. Premier (formerly Diebold) told the State Board of Elections as much.

As to design flaws in ballots, I would point you to my blog post from August of last year where I write about our implementation of many of the recommendations by the Brennan Center for improved ballot design.

http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2008/08/20/making-better-ballots/

As to auditing, I’d point you to the various posts I’ve written regarding post election redundant recounts.