EAC - Voluntary Voting System Guidelines

Name : | Doug Jones
Organization : | N/A
Post Date : | 9/27/2005
Glossary Comments
Glossary Term : | Direct Record Electronic (DRE) Voting System_a
Definition : |
Comment : | Direct Record Electronic (DRE) Voting System: Voting system that records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be actuated by the voter, that processes the data by means of a computer program, and that records voting data and cast vote records in internal and/or external memory components. It produces a tabulation of the voting data stored in a removable memory component and/or in printed copy. Direct-Recording Voting System: Voting system that records votes directly, which is to say, without use of a physical ballot that serves as the record of the votes cast by a particular voter. Mechanical lever voting machines and direct recording electronic voting machines both operate in this way. Direct-Recording Electronic (DRE) Voting System: Direct-recording voting systems that operate electronically, typically using computer technology. Some DRE systems directly increment candidate registers as each vote is cast, while others record one or more ballot images as votes are cast, allowing vote tabulation to be deferred until after the election. -- Comment: The phrase "provided with mechanical or electro-optical components" is bizarrely out of date. Touch screen technology is not in this list! Also, it is quite possible to build DRE voting systems that makes no use of computers, but that exactly emulates the old lever machines using electronics. Just because we do not want to use such machines does not mean that our definition should exclude them.