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Trump officials tried to ban half of U.S. voting machines, citing conspiracy theories
(www.straitstimes.com)
this post was submitted on 22 May 2026
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Wait? Do you guys used machine to vote? On the picture it looks like some tablet stuck to a lectern. Do you click on it to chose who you give your vote?
Elections in the US are run by the individual states, so the process can vary from one state to the next.
Where I live, you use a kiosk-like machine to make your vote selections. That machine prints a physical ballet which you can verify prior to depositing it into a collection box. The ballets are then tabulated using optical scans.
Thanks for explaining. Is there an obvious reason why to use machine rather that preprinted bulletin?
Assuming you mean a preprinted ballet which folks mark by hand; when the ballets with your selections are printed by a machine they will all be consistent and you have fewer issues with people leaving ambiguous marks on the ballet. It also makes the optical scanning used for tabulations more reliable.
Edit to add: there was a scandal here in the US during the 2000 presidential election that you may recall involving "hanging chads" in Florida. Some ballets were deemed ambiguous because the mechanical voting machines used at the time did not fully punch out the holes they were supposed on the ballet sheet.
This is so different from the voting I know.
In France, bulletins are preprinted. We go to close space with every bulletins available in there away from priying eyes put a bulletin in the enveloppe. The enveloppe is then openly put in a box with everyone in the room watching your vote being register to the box. When voting time finished they are open by hand. The presence of multiple people ensure we cannot cheat while reading the content of the enveloppe.
The companies that build the machines/software spend a lot of money on lobbying.
I wish I was kidding.
In Iowa we get a piece of paper with a bunch of circles we fill in with our vote that then gets put into a machine that counts them. Only identity check is someone checking your ID of choice at a desk, usually drivers license.
I don't understand. Do you circle the one you vote for?
You fill in the box/circle completely. The ballot is then fed into the machine which scans for the blacked out fields.
I see. Like for a quizz.
Exactly! Except here in America, most options on this quiz are absolutely terrible so it's a recurring problem where we vote for the best of two pieces of shit.