Wirt:

We use the same machine in some areas of NJ-- they ARE great, although
I'm not sure how the count is transferred from each machine to the
central authorities.

John Painter
---------------------------


Wirt Atmar wrote:
>
> Driven by a deep and abiding faith that you can find anything on the web
> nowadays, I've spent the last 24 hours trying to find the manufacturer of the
> voting machines that Mike Church and I described in somewhat glowing terms
> yesterday.
>
> However, there are times when a web search becomes exceedingly difficult, as
> it did in this instance: there are tens of thousands of local electoral board
> web pages *discussing* voting machines, virtually all of them without
> reference to the brand names of the products they use. Because of that
> fruitlessness, I was ready to throw in the towel trying to find the original
> manufacturer's web page. Ultimately, what allowed me to find the proper
> manufacturer was by my going to AltaVista and doing a web search on *images*
> of voting machines.
>
> Given my difficulties in finding this information, I now humbly submit that
> everyone immediately drop what you're doing and click on:
>
>      http://www.spve.com/products/avc_advantage.html
>
> All kidding aside, this is a very well designed instrument, and I am
> impressed by it. Indeed, it has won several design awards. The AVC Advantage
> voting machine was introduced in 1988, and to the best of my rememberances,
> that's just about how long we've been using them here locally. Because of the
> nature of the machine's design, none of the contentious arguments about
> pregnant- and dimpled-chad or overpunching that are now raging in Florida can
> occur with this device.*
>
> Sequoia Pacific, the company that makes these devices, has just now released
> a replacement model, this time based on a touch-screen CRT:
>
>      http://www.spve.com/products/avc_edge.html
>
> that is supposed to be even easier and more certain to use.
>
> Given the public attention that has been given to the failure of the punched
> paper ballot over the past week, no matter its form, if Sequoia Pacific were
> a publicly traded company (and I find no information that suggests that they
> are), it would very likely be a very good investment over the next few years.
>
> You can't publicity for the argument for better voting methods than that that
> has occurred during the last week.
>
> Wirt Atmar
>
> *However, that doesn't preclude other forms of screw-ups. The county clerk
> for the Dona Ana County, New Mexico, where I reside, just found a tabulating
> error in a state-wide recount. As that recount was proceeding, Bush slowly
> crept ahead, first 4 votes up, then 17, and ultimately finishing with a
> decisive 126 votes. And then, just last night, they found that the 600 votes
> for Gore in one precinct here right here in Las Cruces had been transcribed
> and written down as 100, one person not being able to read another's writing.
> So, it now appears that New Mexico is firmly back in Gore's column, winning
> the state in a landslide, with 375 votes.