WASHINGTON - Motivated by the mess that was this year's American presidential election, two of the nation's top science and engineering schools have partnered to build a better voting machine. The answer may already be here in the form of an ATM.
MIT and CalTech have announced a commitment to developing a full-proof electronic voting system in time for the 2004 presidential election, MSNBC reports. CalTech President David Baltimore said the schools consider ATMs a good way to implement electronic voting.
To vote via ATM, a smart card is placed in the machine. The ballot appears on the touchscreen and the voter touches the portion of the screen that lists their candidate. The vote is immediately confirmed when the box the voter touches turns red. Very few Americans - 8 percent - vote on electronic screens, according to MSNBC.
Kimball Brace of Election Data Services has estimated that furnishing all 191,000 voting precincts in the country with two or three electronic voting machines could cost $2.8 billion, MSNBC reports. Brace estimates the machines would cost $5,000 to $6,000 each.
