VOTING MACHINES. The use of the Australian ballot system has been attended with many complications which have seriously handicapped its use. These have resulted in the devel opment of voting machines for registering and counting votes. Every voter under the Australian system uses a separate paper ballot which causes considerable delay in the counting of votes and the announcement of results. It also permits fraud. Void and blank paper ballots are generally 5% of those voting, and some times as high as 4o%; lost votes sometimes exceed the majorities of successful candidates ; close elections cause endless legal dis putes; contested elections follow with recount costs that exceed the original cost at the election, and a successful candidate's rights are sometimes abrogated until the term of office expires. There are many ways of marking ballots for those on election boards in collusion with vote buyers outside. Voting machines remedy many of these ills. On the voting machine one mechanical ballot is used by all voters, each setting the ballot as he wishes. The vote is registered on the machine's counters, which shows votes when cast so that each candidate's total is seen at all times.
The first inventors of voting machines were English. The earlier machines of Vassie, Chamberlain, Sydserff (1869) and Davy (1870) all used a ball or equivalent placed in a chosen com partment for casting a vote. A number of American inventors also made machines using balls. All these early machines were only makeshifts because the balls had to be counted. Later, me chanical counters replaced balls ; a key and a counter was pro vided for each candidate, the machine was constructed to prevent voters from giving the keys more than one impulse and from using more keys than those to which they are entitled. The first of these machines used were the Myers ballot machine at Lock port in 1892. About 65 were used in Rochester, N.Y., in 1896. It was not reliable or convenient enough but proved it practical for voters, to register votes secretly and pointed to the future developments. The McTammany machine had a separate key for
each candidate. Holes punched in a paper web were counted by a pneumatical machine. Bardwell, Abbott and Dean machines registered votes on mechanical counters.
The U.S. Standard, the Empire and the Automatic Registering machines followed, the latter being the last perfected product. All three were made by one company or its successors at James town, N.Y., past owners of Keiper's roller interlock patent. This patent, No. 1,031, issued July 2, 1912, expired in 1929, and opened the voting machine business to competition. This inter lock is simple, strong, accurate and flexible, and was installed on all these machines. They constitute about 98% of the 16,00o or more machines in the United States. A separate key is pro vided for each candidate. The keys, in horizontal party rows and vertical office lines, are pivoted, swinging from the hori zontal and pointing to the candidates' names printed on ballot labels below the keys. Combined keys, labels, keyboard, etc., makes a mechanical Australian ballot. At the left of each party row are party levers by moving any one of which all pointers on its party row are put in voted position. In States not providing for straight tickets, party levers are omitted or locked. A U-shaped rail holding a curtain forms a booth completely enclosing the voter. By a lever at the top the voter closes the curtain and un locks the machine. As a single stroke of a party lever puts all the keys into position, the voter can turn up the keys of candi dates he wants to omit and vote the others. Reversing the curtain lever counts the votes, resets the keys, opens the curtain, and exposes the keyboard. Until the curtain opens the vote is not counted and the voter can take back or change his vote. Repeat ing is prevented by a knob locking the curtain lever against a second movement by the same voter until it is released by the election officers.