County Clerk
Election Study Group Report
VI. Available Voting Systems
Systems Available in Texas
The Texas Secretary of State has certified several different types of voting systems for use in Texas. Only recently, the state legislature voted to allow different types of voting systems to be used for the different voting programs-EVBM, EVIP, and E-Day-and to allow voting results to be transferred electronically from the precinct to the central accumulation station. Following are the three voting system types reviewed by the study group.
- Optical Scan Central Count - The current Travis County voting system utilizes 12 optical scan machines, AIS Central Scanner Model 315. Also available are Elections System and Software (ES&S) 550 Vote Tabulators, which are the same type system, but count ballots faster and can be networked so that time is saved in transferring ballot counts from the machines to a computer for accumulation and report printing.
- Optical Scan Precinct Count / Modem Transfer - Utilized for election day voting in Dallas and Tarrant Counties, optical scan Precinct Ballot Counters (PBCs) allow votes to be counted electronically at the precinct. When a voter completes the optical scan ballot, he/she feeds the ballot into the PBC. If the PBC detects an overvote (a vote for more than one candidate in a particular race) or it reads a blank ballot-usually caused by using unreadable ink -- it will display a message asking the voter to clarify his/her intentions: Was the overvote on purpose, or did the voter only intend to vote for one candidate? Did the voter purposely not vote for anyone on the ballot, or did he/she just use a writing instrument unreadable by the machine? This allows the voter to determine his/her intentions, thus eliminating any need for an intent of the voter audit by election officials prior to the ballots being scanned.
- Technology at that time only allowed one election to be counted per PBC. For example, primary elections would have to utilize two PBCs per precinct, which was not financially feasible. Current technology allows PBCs to handle more than one election at a time.
- In 1997, the Texas Legislature passed a law allowing modem transfer of election results. Prior to that time, election judges would still have had to drive the results diskette into a central counting station or a receiving substation. At the time the 1990 task force investigated the issue, the PBCs would have cost more than the central counting optical scan system, while saving little time.
- Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting System / Modem Transfer - Some DREs are a touch-screen voting system. Anyone who has used a touch-screen ATM machine or a wedding registry at a department store is familiar with this technology.
Because the PBC counts the ballots as they are submitted, at the end of the day, the election judge need only complete the paperwork and modem the precinct's results directly to a central computer for accumulation and report printing. The hand audit to verify write-ins would occur after the results are transferred to the central computer.
The 1990 Travis County Elections Task Force researched PBCs and determined them to be unacceptable due to two primary concerns:
The voter simply follows the on-screen directions and touches the screen to indicate his/her choices. This system is paperless (thus no ballot expenditure) and allows the voter to review his/her choices prior to submitting the vote. Because DREs do not allow overvotes, the intent of the voter audit is again solved by the voter. And like PBCs, the DRE systems allow direct modem transfer of vote tabulations from the precinct to the central computer for accumulation and report printing.
DREs also represent the only systems meeting voting requirements for individuals with visual impairments or physical disabilities. Two DRE systems -- Global's AccuVote and Shoup's Elex System -- are currently certified for use in Texas by the secretary of state as meeting voting requirements for the visually impaired. They utilize headphones so that the voter can cast a secret ballot. The Elections Systems and Software (ES&S) EZ Access kiosk voting systems -- also a DRE system -- is designed to allow secret ballot voting for all individuals, regardless of visual or physical limitations. This system is scheduled for certification in May of this year.
The DRE and PBC voting system types offer varied solutions at varying costs, whether with a single system type or a combination of two or more system types. An explanation of various options considered by the study group follows.
- return to Study Group Findings
- continue on to Available Systems, part II
