[Voterescue] Record number of U.S. voters may cast paper ballots this year

[chamade at chamade.com]

The first time I voted, we had to use the punch machine that slid around.

At 02:13 PM 8/8/2008, Timms Christina wrote:
>I still have a problem with the whole idea that first time voters 
>are going to be "confused" about how to use the paper ballot. I'm 
>sorry but its not rocket science, I think young voters deserve a 
>little more credit
>
>
>On 8/7/08 3:55 PM, "chamade at chamade.com" <chamade at chamade.com> wrote:
>
>Actually yes.  Thanks to Katrina and other natural disasters, the 
>price of wood has risen dramatically.  We ship cardboard to China 
>where they recycle
>it and send it back to us.  But paper prices have risen a lot!
>
>At 02:53 PM 8/7/2008, Laura Westcott wrote:
>Wonder why counties have to "spend tens of millions of dollars 
>printing ballots"...are paper prices rising too?
>
>
>On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 1:34 PM, Jenny Clark <jclark99 at austin.rr.com > wrote:
>
><http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/08/07/08>http://www.statesman.com/search/content/news/stories/nation/08/07/08 
>07papervoting.html
>
>PAPER BALLOTS
>Record number of U.S. voters may cast paper ballots this year
>Many officials shelving electronic devices over glitches, hacker fears.
>By Allison Hoffman
>ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
>Thursday, August 07, 2008
>SAN DIEGO - Come November, more Americans might cast their ballots 
>on paper than in any other election in U.S. history.
>That wasn't supposed to happen. If everything had gone according to 
>the government's $3 billion plan to upgrade voting technology after 
>the hanging-chad fiasco in Florida in 2000, that sentence would read 
>"electronic machines" instead of paper.
>Instead, thousands of touchscreen devices are collecting dust in 
>warehouses from California to Florida, where officials worried about 
>hackers and fed up with technical glitches have replaced the 
>equipment with scanners that will read paper ballots.
>An Associated Press Election Research survey has found that 57 
>percent of the nation's registered voters live in counties that will 
>be relying on paper ballots this fall.
>The number of registered voters in jurisdictions that will rely 
>mainly on electronic voting machines has fallen from a high of 44 
>percent during the 2006 midterm elections to 36 percent. (Much of 
>the rest of the electorate consists of voters in New York state, who 
>will be using old-fashioned pull-lever machines.)
>In fact, because of growth in the electorate, expansion of absentee 
>voting rules, and expectations of high turnout for the contest 
>between presumptive presidential nominees Democrat Sen. Barack Obama 
>and Republican Sen. John McCain, some experts are predicting a 
>record number of Americans will cast ballots on paper this year.
>"More people will be using computer-read paper ballots than at any 
>other time in the nation's history," said Kimball Brace, head of 
>Election Data Services, a consulting firm. "As you get more 
>registered voters and more people in the pool, it exacerbates this 
>bigger issue of paper."
>In 2000, about 97 million registered voters lived in counties that 
>relied on some form of paper ballot, Brace said. The number is 
>expected to top 100 million this fall, according to the AP data.
>The return to paper creates extra stress on an already-strapped 
>election system. Cash-poor counties will have to spend tens of 
>millions of dollars printing ballots. Voters, many of them 
>first-timers, may wind up confused by the ballot formats and 
>frustrated by long lines of people waiting to use the scanners.
>All states but Idaho have junked the punch-card ballots that caused 
>so much trouble in Florida. But many plan to use paper ballots that 
>require voters to fill in ovals with a pen.
>"After 2000, there was a widespread revulsion about paper - everyone 
>had the mental image of the guy cross-eyed looking at the punch-card 
>ballot," said Doug Chapin, director of the watchdog Electionline. 
>"But there's no silver bullet. You're trading one set of problems for another."
>
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