[E-voting] Re: Question on optical scan - Summary

[Brian O'Byrne]

Quoting Brian O'Byrne <bobyrne at statesoft.ie>:

> The question is: Has anyone seen or designed a optical scan ballot for an
> STV election?

To summarise the thread:
The answer seems to be that the only OpScan ballots for STV that anyone has seen
have been based on a matrix of boxes. There seems to be a general consensus that
this is not appropriate for the Irish context.

A number of other methods are possible, from handwriting recognition through to
ballot printers. The only one of these that we can be confident of recommending
without further testing is the ballot printer option. The ballot printer carries
other political concerns, at it would been seen as by some as having all the
cost and complexity of DRE without being DRE. Since the government and
department has expressed a strong preference for DRE something 'so close, and
yet so far' is not likely to be accepted.

Is that a reasonable summary so far?

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