[E-voting] Question on optical scan

[Brian O'Byrne]

Quoting Margaret McGaley <Margaret.McGaley at redbrick.dcu.ie>:

> On Wed, Jan 19, 2005 at 02:33:32PM +0000, evoting at stusoft.org wrote:
> > 
> > Stickers sound a little messy to me.
> > 
> 
> Why?

I'd be worried about problems like:
- Stickers falling off immediately after the OCR step.
- Stickers getting folded in such a way as to stick two ballots together.
(Consider where the center of the sticker is fully and properly stuck but an
edge has been folded back. Another ballot lands on top and gets stuck.)
- Ballots getting folded so that one sticker is stuck on two places. (A
variation on the same theme. The sticker has a folded edge or corner; not
enough to alert the scanner but enough to be a problem when the ballot is
folded.)
- Arguments arising if people find odd stickers in the ballot box.
- Mechanical/reliability problems with the OCR equipment. It is one thing to put
a single flat piece of paper through a machine, it is another to put through
stickers. I could imagine rollers getting gummed up or stickers transferring to
rollers by accident.

Some of these are a little paranoid, and could be overcome with a good design. I
keep reminding myself that punch cards seemed like a reliable and well-trusted
technology before the 2000 US presendential elections...

Brian.
-- 
Brian O'Byrne, Statesoft Ltd.
Tel: +353 1 449 8151, +353 86 240 4719
http://www.statesoft.ie/