[E-voting] Question on optical scan

[Aengus Lawlor]

On Wednesday, January 19, 2005 1:44 PM [GMT],
Brian O'Byrne <bobyrne at statesoft.ie> wrote:

> It seems less easy where the voter has to express an order of
> preference. Do you have many boxes beside each candidate (mark the
> leftmost box for first preference) or do you have OCR that tries to
> read numbers, or some other system?
> I'd be concerned that OCR has a fairly high failure rate, and the
> many boxes option is confusing for voters.
>
> Does anyone have experience of this?

The banks and An Post have a lot of experience in this area, using
character sets that are far less standardised than would be needed for
an OCR ballot counting (with printed ballots).

Ballot layout and design might need some thought, (card stock rather
than paper, for ease of handling, some sort of "sleeve" or envelope for
privacy, as folding might cause problems, etc) but the basic technology
shouldn't pose significant problems.

Aengus