-Caveat Lector- http://www.msnbc.com/news/496294.asp?0na=2205970- Punch cards: high-tech wonders Controversial machines were precursor to modern computing By Lisa Napoli © MSNBC Nov. 29 — These days punch cards are the centerpiece of the political nightmare gripping the nation, the subject of litigation that could fuel a thousand law firms. But 110 years ago, the punch card was considered a high-tech wonder, a precursor to modern computing, and it actually streamlined an important government process. “The punch card machine was first invented for the 1890 census, which was the 11th census in the U.S., and the Census Bureau was very worried that they would not be able to count all the ballots,” said Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer Museum in Silicon Valley. “There had been millions of new immigrants and the system they were using was falling apart. They were still doing the 1880 census in 1889, so they were in big trouble.” Enter a German engineer named Herman Hollerith <http://www.history.rochester.edu/steam/hollerith/>, who came up with the machine that solved the problem. (He’d been inspired by a loom invented in France in 1801 by a guy named Jacquard <http://www.bess.net/whats_new/June2/science_and_nature/>, who used punch cards to mechanize the creation of complex fabric designs.) Hollerith’s tabulating machine allowed the census to process 10 times as many forms as the old, manual way of counting. “Census takers would return to the bureau with written information, hand coders would tranlsate those into punch cards and the punch cards would then be placed into this waffle iron kind of thing and the operator would close the card, then press over the card,” explained Spicer. That, of course, would create something called chad. ################# Vote lately? Millions of Americans have, but not everyone used the same system. There are five common voting systems in the country and each has its flaws, according to the Federal Election Commission. Click a slice of the pie chart above to learn more about the different ballot methods. HOW AMERICA VOTES! ****************** PUNCH CARDS: Used by 37.3 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Voters slide a card under a perforated board that displays candidates or measures. Then they use a stylus to punch through appropriate areas on their card. That card is then placed into a sealed box and tallied by machine at the precinct. Potential flaws: Sometimes tabs, or chads, on the ballot don't completely detach. Handling can cause some chads to unintentionally fall out. Either way, the vote may be invalidated. PAPER: Used by 1.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: This is as simple as it gets. The candidates and measures are laid out on paper. Voters mark boxes for their choices and then drop the form into a sealed ballot box. Usually, these votes are tallied by hand. Many absentee ballots use this system, along with some small town precincts. Potential flaws: Historically, this system has fallen victim to ballot box stuffing. MARKSENSE: Used by 24.6 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Familiar to school kids across the country, these ballots require voters to fill in bubbles for their choices. They are rapidly read by computer. Many absentee ballots use this optical scan system. Potential flaws: The computer reader can easily misread smudges on the ballot or bubbles that are incompletely marked. ELECTRONIC: Used by 7.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Officially, these are Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems -- the ATM of voting. Choices appear on a monitor and voters press buttons for each option. That information is then stored on disk. Some advocates of this approach say it should be available via the Internet. Potential flaws: The machines might be vulnerable to hackers by precinct staffers. And what about the computer illiterate? Do they understand how to vote on an electronic ballot box? MECHANICAL LEVERS: Used by 20.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Sort of like a voting slot machine -- pull the big arm and see if your candidate wins. Each candidate or measure has its own lever that, when pulled, adds a vote to a mechanical counter. Sound old fashioned? It is. Lever voting machines went out of production years ago. Potential flaws: Critics charge corrupt election officials or mischievous voters can relabel these machines. One study suggested that descriptions on some levers were too high for short people to read. MIXED: Some 8 percent of voters used mixed systems in 1996. How it works: In a few voting districts, budget concerns or technical problems forced precincts to use more than one of the methods above. For instance, many states hold votes for elected officials using mechanical levers, but also distribute paper, punch cards or marksense ballots to provide more information on referendums. Potential flaws: Critics charge corrupt election officials or mischievous voters can relabel these machines. One study suggested that descriptions on some levers were too high for short people to read. INTERNET: No one voted via Internet in 1996, though a small pilot program allowed some overseas military personnel to cast absentee ballots that way this year. How it works: This November, under a program called the Federal Voter Assistance Program, a small number of overseas military personnel were allowed to cast their ballots over the Internet. Additionally, the Democratic primary in Arizona on March 11 allowed Internet voting to those who asked for "digital certificates," which were essentially encrypted Internet ballots. No indication of problems has surfaced in either instance. Potential flaws: Critics charge that Internet voting could fall victim to hackers, computer illiterate voters and other vulnerabilities. ################# PUNCH CARDS: Used by 37.3 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Voters slide a card under a perforated board that displays candidates or measures. Then they use a stylus to punch through appropriate areas on their card. That card is then placed into a sealed box and tallied by machine at the precinct. Potential flaws: Sometimes tabs, or chads, on the ballot don't completely detach. Handling can cause some chads to unintentionally fall out. Either way, the vote may be invalidated. PAPER: Used by 1.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: This is as simple as it gets. The candidates and measures are laid out on paper. Voters mark boxes for their choices and then drop the form into a sealed ballot box. Usually, these votes are tallied by hand. Many absentee ballots use this system, along with some small town precincts. Potential flaws: Historically, this system has fallen victim to ballot box stuffing. MARKSENSE: Used by 24.6 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Familiar to school kids across the country, these ballots require voters to fill in bubbles for their choices. They are rapidly read by computer. Many absentee ballots use this optical scan system. Potential flaws: The computer reader can easily misread smudges on the ballot or bubbles that are incompletely marked. ELECTRONIC: Used by 7.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Officially, these are Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) systems -- the ATM of voting. Choices appear on a monitor and voters press buttons for each option. That information is then stored on disk. Some advocates of this approach say it should be available via the Internet. Potential flaws: The machines might be vulnerable to hackers by precinct staffers. And what about the computer illiterate? Do they understand how to vote on an electronic ballot box? MECHANICAL LEVERS: Used by 20.7 percent of voters in 1996. How it works: Sort of like a voting slot machine -- pull the big arm and see if your candidate wins. Each candidate or measure has its own lever that, when pulled, adds a vote to a mechanical counter. Sound old fashioned? It is. Lever voting machines went out of production years ago. Potential flaws: Critics charge corrupt election officials or mischievous voters can relabel these machines. One study suggested that descriptions on some levers were too high for short people to read. MIXED: Some 8 percent of voters used mixed systems in 1996. How it works: In a few voting districts, budget concerns or technical problems forced precincts to use more than one of the methods above. For instance, many states hold votes for elected officials using mechanical levers, but also distribute paper, punch cards or marksense ballots to provide more information on referendums. Potential flaws: Critics charge corrupt election officials or mischievous voters can relabel these machines. One study suggested that descriptions on some levers were too high for short people to read. INTERNET: No one voted via Internet in 1996, though a small pilot program allowed some overseas military personnel to cast absentee ballots that way this year. How it works: This November, under a program called the Federal Voter Assistance Program, a small number of overseas military personnel were allowed to cast their ballots over the Internet. Additionally, the Democratic primary in Arizona on March 11 allowed Internet voting to those who asked for "digital certificates," which were essentially encrypted Internet ballots. No indication of problems has surfaced in either instance. Potential flaws: Critics charge that Internet voting could fall victim to hackers, computer illiterate voters and other vulnerabilities. Source: AP, MSNBC.com research PUNCH CARDS BECAME STANDARD It wasn’t just the government that saw the beauty of the punch card as a tabulation tool for information once counted laboriously by hand. Businesses started using it, too, and it soon became a standard. In 1924, Hollerith started calling his company IBM. As punch cards reached the apex of their commercial use in 1969, when 200 billion punch cards were consumed, the government started using them for the first time to collect and tabulate ballots — they debuted in parts of the country in the presidential election in 1964. Though hardly any businesses use them today, close to 40 percent of the nation’s citizens still cast votes using some form of punch-card balloting, as we’ve learned in this infamous election. Punch cards as voting tools have long been the focus of contentitious debate. Palm Beach County had a problem with hanging chad in 1984, in an election for a property appraiser. A former county supervisor of elections there told a reporter at the Palm Beach Post recently that in the 1996 presidential election, there were a number of “undervotes” attributable to faulty machines. Some machines had been retrofitted to deal with chad build-up. Massachusetts and New Hampshire each decertified the punch-card machine after troubled elections in each state flagged problems with that kind of balloting. And, to add to the fire of chad-related problems, consider that in 1988, a researcher working on behalf of the Markle foundation recommended the elimination of pre-scored punch card ballots in a report called Accuracy, Integrity and Security in Computerized Vote-Tallying. <http://www.cpsr.org/conferences/cfp93/saltman.html> None of this, of course, surprises Singer of the Computer Museum. <http://www.computerhistory.org/> “The punch card ballot is kind of an anachronism, because there really are better ways to do it,” he said. “The coordinating intelligence in handling punch cards is human. We still need humans handling these atoms rather than just bits on the screen, and that’s where the problems come in. Anytime you have people handling paper you have a margin for error.” That, of course, has turned out to be the great understatement of the new millennium, as we watch judges curiously study the descendants of these 110-year old pre-computer cards in order to divine the user’s intent. All that hoo-hahing last New Year’s eve, where we waited for the world to end and hyper-adjusted machines to self-implode, seems triply ridiculous when compared to the horrors of Election Day, 2000 — when our arcane, disjointed system of balloting finally imploded, leaving a residue of chad in its wake and a very bad taste in our mouths about our alleged democracy. Will the next Herman Hollerith please stand up? 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