What is e-voting?
E-voting, or electronic voting, refers to computerized voting machines that use electronic ballots rather than paper ones. They’re also known as direct-recording electronic machines, or DREs. E-voting machines consist of three types: touch-screen machines that let voters cast votes by touching an electronic ballot on an LCD screen, punch-key machines that use a keypad for making selections on an electronic ballot, and wheel machines that require voters to rotate a wheel and press a button. Aren’t optical-scan machines also electronic machines? Optical-scan machines use an electronic reader to record the vote, but not to cast it. The machines require voters to mark their choices on a paper ballot, which is then scanned into an electronic reader to record the vote. Since voters are not directly recording their vote into the computer, the machine is not a DRE. This doesn’t mean that optical-scan machines are free of the glitches and programming errors that can plague e-voting machines. Th
