Notes

Outline

Voting Equipment and Related Terminology

Types of Voting Equipment Currently Certified for Use in Georgia Paper Ballots Lever Machines Punch Cards Opti-Scan Direct Recording Electronic (DRE)

Paper Ballots A paper ballot system employs uniform official ballots on which the names of all candidates and issues are printed. Voters record their choices, in private, by marking the boxes next to the candidate or issue choice they select and drop the voted ballot in a sealed ballot box.

Counties Using Paper Ballots Montgomery Taliaferro Total Precincts: 9 Total Active Voters: 5,394

Lever Machines (identified as “Vote Machine” in Georgia Code) On mechanical lever voting machines, the name of each candidate or ballot issue choice is assigned a particular lever in a rectangular array of levers on the front of the machine.

Lever Machines  (cont’d) When the voter exits the booth, the voted levers are automatically returned to their original position. As each lever returns, it causes a connected counter wheel within the machine to turn and record the vote.

Lever Machines  (cont’d) Counties with Lever Machines Appling Atkinson Bacon Baker Baldwin Bleckley Brantley Brooks Bryan Burke Camden Candler Charlton Chattahoochee Clarke Clay Clinch Coffee Colquitt Crawford Crisp Dade Decatur Dodge Dooly Echols Effingham Emanuel Evans Glascock Grady Habersham Hancock Harris Hart Irwin Jasper Jeff Davis Jefferson Jenkins Johnson Lanier Laurens Liberty Long Macon Madison McIntosh Miller Peach Pickens Pierce Pulaski Quitman Rabun

Lever Machines  (cont’d) Counties with Lever Machines (cont’d) Schley Screven Spalding Stephens Stewart Sumter Talbot Tattnall Telfair Terrell Tift Toombs Warran Washington Webster Wilcox Wilkes Wilkinson Total Counties Using Lever Machines:  73 Total Precincts:  641 Total Active Voters:  642,858

Punch Cards (Identified as “Vote Recorder” in Georgia Code) Punch Card systems employ a card for recording votes.  Voters punch holes in the cards, with a supplied punching device, opposite their candidate or ballot issue choice. After voting, the voter deposits the ballot in a ballot box. At the close of voting, the ballots are transported in sealed containers to a central location where they are counted.

Punch Cards (cont’d) Fulton and DeKalb counties in Georgia were the first jurisdictions to use punch cards when they adopted the system in 1964.

Punch Cards  (cont’d) Counties with Punch Card Machines Calhoun Clayton Columbia DeKalb Forsyth Fulton Henry Lee Lincoln Marion (data vote) Newton Paulding Richmond Seminole Turner Twiggs Worth Total Counties Using Punch Cards:  17 Total Precincts:  754 Total Voters:  1,174,225

Opti-Scan (Identified as “Optical Scan” in Georgia Code) Opti-Scan systems employ a ballot card on which candidates and issue choices are preprinted next to an oval or an incomplete arrow. Voters record their choices by filling in the oval or by completing the arrow with a special pen or pencil.

Opti-Scan (cont’d) After voting, the voters either place the ballot in a sealed box or feed it into a computer tabulating device at the precinct.

Opti-Scan (cont’d) Counties with Optical Scan: Central Counters Banks Barrow Berrien Bibb Bulloch Butts Carroll Catoosa Cherokee Cook Coweta Dawson Douglas Elbert Fannin Fayette Floyd Franklin Gilmer Haralson Heard Houston Jackson Lamar Lumpkin McDuffie Meriwether Mitchell Monroe Morgan Murray Oglethorpe Pike Polk Rockdale Taylor Thomas Towns Treutlen Troup Upson Walker Walton Ware Wayne White Total Counties Using Optical Scan: Central Counters: 46

Opti-Scan (cont’d) Counties with Optical Scan: Precinct Counters Bartow Ben Hill Chatham Chattooga Cobb Dougherty Early Glynn Gordon Greene Gwinnett Hall Jones Lowndes Muscogee Oconee Putnam Randoph Union Wheeler Whitfield Total Counties Using Optical Scan: Precinct Counter: 21 Total Counties Using Optical Scan Equipment:  67 Total Precincts:  1,355 Total Active Voters: 2,034,199

Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Direct recording electronic, or DRE, is an electronic version of the old mechanical lever system. As with the lever machines, there is no paper ballot – the possible choices are visible to the voter on a screen on the front of the machine.

Other Election Terms Undervote:  The difference between the highest number of votes received in a particular race on the ballot and the total number of ballots that were cast.