Comments on: Judges’ Initials in the OpScan Age http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2010/02/08/judges-initials-in-the-opscan-age/ Champaign County Clerk Blog Tue, 14 Jun 2011 12:53:06 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Champaign County Clerk http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2010/02/08/judges-initials-in-the-opscan-age/comment-page-1/#comment-1987 Champaign County Clerk Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:25:16 +0000 http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/?p=325#comment-1987 Thanks Joyce. Unfortunately, the vast majorities of counties in Illinois do not report their under and over votes on line. I'm going to do a study of this. At first glance, the DRE counties of Kane and Peoria have much higher undervotes than Champaign. How this compares across the state I have yet to determine. Thanks Joyce. Unfortunately, the vast majorities of counties in Illinois do not report their under and over votes on line. I’m going to do a study of this. At first glance, the DRE counties of Kane and Peoria have much higher undervotes than Champaign. How this compares across the state I have yet to determine.

]]> By: Joyce McCloy http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/2010/02/08/judges-initials-in-the-opscan-age/comment-page-1/#comment-1986 Joyce McCloy Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:41:21 +0000 http://blog.champaigncountyclerk.com/?p=325#comment-1986 Addressing one of Mark's points: "This situation of different voting systems with different error possibilities existed in the past when the notorious lever machines were being used at the same time as hand counted paper ballots and punch card ballots." In 2006, North Carolina went from having 40 of 100 counties using mostly DRE/touchscreens to only 20 counties using only touchscreens. The rest are DREs. in 2000 and 2004, NC had one of the highest undervote rates for President in the US, and we also have a weird straight ticket voting law where straight ticket doesn't count for President. We wondered how that impacted the undervote rate. In 2008, North Carolina cuts undervote rate for President in half. Part of that might have been voter education but we belief another part is the increased use of optical scan systems. We also learned that in spite of advantages DRE touchscreens were supposed to offer, that optical scanners counted better. Read Prof Mark Lindeman's report: North Carolina Touch Screens Show High Rate of Unrecorded Votes for President in 2008 Paper Ballots Found More Efficient at Recording Voters' Choices http://www.ncvoter.net/undervote.html Also, Dr. Justin Moore has some handy studies comparing voting technology and undervotes for North Carolina in 2000 and 2004 when NC used DREs, OS, Punch Cards, Levers and hand counted paper ballots. Its interesting to see the variances, some systems have better undervote for President yet sometimes higher undervote for down the ballot contests.. An analysis of undervote rates in North Carolina broken down by technologies. http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/totals.html Addressing one of Mark’s points: “This situation of different voting systems with different error possibilities existed in the past when the notorious lever machines were being used at the same time as hand counted paper ballots and punch card ballots.”

In 2006, North Carolina went from having 40 of 100 counties using mostly DRE/touchscreens to only 20 counties using only touchscreens. The rest are DREs. in 2000 and 2004, NC had one of the highest undervote rates for President in the US, and we also have a weird straight ticket voting law where straight ticket doesn’t count for President.

We wondered how that impacted the undervote rate. In 2008, North Carolina cuts undervote rate for President in half. Part of that might have been voter education but we belief another part is the increased use of optical scan systems. We also learned that in spite of advantages DRE touchscreens were supposed to offer, that optical scanners counted better.

Read Prof Mark Lindeman’s report: North Carolina Touch Screens Show High Rate of Unrecorded Votes for President in 2008 Paper Ballots Found More Efficient at Recording Voters’ Choices http://www.ncvoter.net/undervote.html

Also, Dr. Justin Moore has some handy studies comparing voting technology and undervotes for North Carolina in 2000 and 2004 when NC used DREs, OS, Punch Cards, Levers and hand counted paper ballots. Its interesting to see the variances, some systems have better undervote for President yet sometimes higher undervote for down the ballot contests..

An analysis of undervote rates in North Carolina broken down by technologies. http://www.cs.duke.edu/~justin/voting/totals.html

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