The reality about "vote flipping" machines in NC and elsewhere

[Kelvin Mace]

68. The problem is, the ballots are too complicated

for this type of system. Believe me, I have sat down with election officials across the country and looks at many different ballots. Hand-counted paper ballots are great in theory, but not in practice. Also, the more people handling a ballot, the greater chance of error, or damage to the ballot which makes it likely to be challenged.

People like to point out that the Scottish referendum was hand-counted, quickly and accurately. This is true, but the ballot had ONE item on it with two boxes to check. I just sent of my own ballot last week and their were three dozen races on it (one race had 16 candidate and you had to pick two). The California recall race ten years ago had FORTY pages. You cannot accurately count complex ballots like that, seriously.

OpScan is the best compromise. You get a machine count, which can be randomly audited with a spot hand count.