Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Development of Appropriate Test Markings for Optical Scan Voting Machines, Phase 1: Ballot Scanning and Collection

Published

Author(s)

Mitch Trachtenberg, David Flater

Abstract

Three hundred thousand optical scan ballots cast in three United States jurisdictions have been scanned at high resolution in order to analyze voter behavior in marking ballots. Each jurisdiction uses a different vote target style: oval, box, or broken arrow. Unusual markings are summarized. Subsequent reports will classify the complete set of ballot markings and will develop an appropriate set of markings suitable for testing optical scan voting machines as well as a protocol for generating marks from the test set.
Citation
NIST Voting Publications

Keywords

voting, ballot, optical scan, election, ballot marking, election auditing

Citation

Trachtenberg, M. and Flater, D. (2011), Development of Appropriate Test Markings for Optical Scan Voting Machines, Phase 1: Ballot Scanning and Collection, NIST Voting Publications, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=907866, http://www.nist.gov/itl/vote/publications.cfm (Accessed October 10, 2024)

Issues

If you have any questions about this publication or are having problems accessing it, please contact reflib@nist.gov.

Created May 1, 2011, Updated October 12, 2021