An electronic voting machine is a
voting machine
A voting machine is a machine used to record votes in an election without paper. The first voting machines were mechanical but it is increasingly more common to use ''electronic voting machines''. Traditionally, a voting machine has been defi ...
based on
electronics
Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...
.
Two main technologies exist: ''
optical scanning'' and ''
direct recording'' (DRE).
Optical scanning
In an
optical scan voting system
An optical scan voting system is an Electronic voting, electronic voting system and uses an Optical reader, optical scanner to read marked paper ballots and Vote counting system, tally the results.
History Marksense systems
While mark sense tech ...
, or marksense, each voter's choices are marked on one or more pieces of paper, which then go through a scanner. The scanner creates an electronic image of each ballot, interprets it, creates a tally for each candidate, and usually stores the image for later review.
The voter may mark the paper directly, usually in a specific location for each candidate. Or the voter may select choices on an electronic screen, which then prints the chosen names, and a bar code or QR code summarizing all choices, on a sheet of paper to put in the scanner.
Hundreds of
errors in optical scan systems have been found, from feeding ballots upside down, multiple ballots pulled through at once in central counts, paper jams, broken, blocked or overheated sensors which misinterpret some or many ballots, printing which does not align with the programming, programming errors, and loss of files.
The cause of each programming error is rarely found, so it is not known how many were accidental or intentional.
Direct-recording electronic (DRE)

In a
DRE voting machine
A DRE voting machine, or direct-recording electronic voting machine, records votes by means of a ballot display provided with mechanical or electro-optical components that can be activated by the voter. These are typically buttons or a touchsc ...
system, a touch screen displays choices to the voter, who selects choices, and can change their mind as often as needed, before casting the vote. Staff initialize each voter once on the machine, to avoid repeat voting. Voting data are recorded in memory components, and can be copied out at the end of the election.
Some of these machines also print names of chosen candidates on paper for the voter to verify, though less than 40% verify.
These names on paper are kept behind glass in the machine, and can be used for
election audit An election audit is any review conducted after polls close for the purpose of determining whether the votes were counted accurately (a ''results audit'') or whether proper procedures were followed (a ''process audit''), or both.
Both results and p ...
s and
recount
An election recount is a repeat tabulation of votes cast in an election that is used to determine the correctness of an initial count. Recounts will often take place if the initial vote tally during an election is extremely close. Election reco ...
s if needed. The tally of the voting data is printed on the end of the paper tape. The paper tape is called a
Voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT). The VVPATs can be tallied at 20–43 seconds of staff time per vote (not per ballot).
For machines without VVPAT, there is no record of individual votes to check. For machines with VVPAT, checking is more expensive than with paper ballots, because on the flimsy thermal paper in a long continuous roll, staff often lose their place, and the printout has each change by each voter, not just their final decisions.
Problems have included public web access to the software, before it is loaded into machines for each election, and programming errors which increment different candidates than voters select.
The
Federal Constitutional Court of Germany
The Federal Constitutional Court ( ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme court, supreme constitutional court for the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany, Basic Law ...
found that with existing machines could not be allowed because they could not be monitored by the public.
Successful hacks have been demonstrated under laboratory conditions.
Use of SDU voting computers banned during Dutch general elections
(Heise.de, 31. October 2006)
See also
* Electronic voting#Machines
* Vote counting#Electronic counting
* Electronic voting
Electronic voting is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or handle casting and counting ballots including voting time.
Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone '' electronic voting machines'' (also ...
* Electronic voting in India
References
{{reflist
Election technology
Electronic voting