Pencil marks are prone to issues of stray marks, invalid choices (like choosing two candidates for a single office where you can only choose one), incomplete marks like where there's only a dot (or ✖️ or ✔️) when you're instructed to actually fill in the whole bubble. Many of these types of marking rules can invalidate an improperly marked ballot. And pencil marking is also subject to regular old mistakes, like when someone bubbles in the candidate other than their intended candidate, by following the row/table alignment incorrectly.

The ballot marking machine is helpful for making sure that the ballot generated isn't invalid, and prevents certain categories of mistakes.

Seems like a good reason to maybe have random ordering? Then it would need to be reading the content to be able to properly change things instead of something a little less obvious like screen calibration.

any teacher who has ever used a scantron for their tests will know that “fill only one bubble per entry” is difficult for a surprising percentage of the population.

Yeah, but they're dealing with kids.

You would hope that an adult who is competent enough to be voting should be able to accomplish such a simple task.

If someone from the past saw this they'd just assume humanity evolved into clowns. Which isn't even wrong.

There are very good reasons to ban Karatom that aren't related to panicking or Facebook posts.

they still loose (lose)

That remains to be seen. Our system is not secure from fascist fuckery and that has become increasingly clear over the last decade.

Despite republican claims to the contrary, you do actually need proper ID to vote.

What kind of idiot (or compromised) developer wouldn't put the selection boxes as far away as reasonably possible from each other on the screen?

They said don’t be a conspiracy theorist and removed the post.

Have you tried changing the headline from "Tennessee" to "North Korea" and just see if it slips under their radar?

I mean, you're really underselling the ability for these people to rig elections.

I would not be surprised to see a bunch of the Deep South states with heavily diverging exit polls and final results. Then we'll get an earful about polling being unreliable and an even bigger earful about how anyone doubting election results is a Russian PsyOp.

We have paper ballots in Oregon and it isnt a problem. Unlike a scantron, the ballot is 5x the size with 5x fewer options so it isn't crammed full of little tiny bubbles to pencil in. They also print on the ballot instructions for what to do if you select the wrong bubble (cross out the bubble with an X and fill in the correct one), so that isn't a problem either.

It seems people in this thread are just giving cover to shitty practices and election fraud under the guise of "I can invent a problem in my mind therefore it's an actual problem and why these deceptive practices must exist."

Well, for starters...

A hanging chad is a fragment from a punch-card ballot paper which has not detached fully, resulting in an incomplete and therefore invalid ballot paper. Punch-card voting machines require voters to punch holes in their ballot papers in order to indicate their voting preferences. The small discarded fragment of paper is called a “chad”. “Hanging chads” result when ballot papers are not completely punched through and the small piece of paper or card prevents the ballot paper from being marked down as a definite vote for a particular candidate.

Hanging chads were partly responsible for the unusually high proportion of invalid votes recorded in Florida during the 2000 US Presidential election. As Chads weren’t completely punched through, many ballot papers recorded people voting for fewer than the minimum number of candidates required. The US invested heavily in electronic voting methods such as voting machines, but still faces significant difficulties with elections.

Absolutely, then you could do statistical analysis on the positions to see if any position is biased (for or against) and detect the problem and recalibrate the screen and no one candidate would gain that much of an advantage (well, candidates that weren't going to get many votes would benefit, but not to the point where they'd be able to steal an election).

But that assumes they are being run in good faith.

I mean, they solved it by showing you which option you selected before you moved to the next screen.

Dont forget "state police arresting hundreds of sober drivers for DUI in order to hit DUI quotas."

Nobody mentioned punch card ballots.

And bigots.

You needed three more syllables.

Seems like most people skipped "lose" day at school.

Exactly.

Also the tribalism is so strong that the ends (our team winning) justifies the means.

There’s no such thing as a lack of an accent. All that means is “it’s the same accent as me”. To a Brit, someone from Ohio has an extremely thick American accent, what with all the rhotic Rs and such.

Just like in cars, can we have physical buttons back? Touch screens shouldn't be used for anything important.

Quadruple check the candidate you chose is printed on the slip before feeding it into the counting machine.

Europoor here: I thought you guys had actually digitalized the process. This just sounds like ticking a box on a piece of paper with a pen with extra steps.

That's exactly what it is.

Thanks for reminding me to read the voters guide on the Max later today!

They did it because alcohol sales were falling. Mushrooms and pot loopholes were also closed.

well, I mean, it's a lack of any specific American accent. They don't sound like they're from the Appalachia, West/East coast, or Boston, or the south etc. etc. A lot of American television news reporters came from Columbus, Ohio back-in-the-day because we just don't have a regional dialect.

Easier to press the old resistive screen with a coin than with a finger. lol

Nothing. Americans getting ripped off by some company selling bullshit at the expense of their democratic legitimacy.

You can count the votes faster... but who cares about that when you can just take longer?

Likewise, electronic voting just introduces the doubt of legitimacy, even if voting is totally safe and legit.

What I said still applies in the context of American accents. There’s nothing that makes Ohio’s accent the base from which others deviate. It’s literally just the one you happen to be the most used to hearing. To someone who grew up in rural West Virginia, your accent is quite noticeable, and their neighbors just talk normally. To them, everyone but them has an accent. Yours isn’t special in any way.

They don't sound like they're from the Appalachia, West/East coast, or Boston, or the south etc. etc.

No, they sound like they’re from Ohio.

No, I mean, the "radio announcer" and thus the "news reporter" voice was modeled after the Ohio accent, because it was seen as a non-accent. You're right that we have one, it's just so incredibly bland, that it comes across as not one at all.

Here's an article that goes into further detail

Vizetelly, who established a school for announcers at CBS, was concerned with maintaining the “purity” of American English. In his mind, the Midwest was the place to be—and Ohio in particular.

Vizetelly and other educators felt that broadcasters could evoke trustworthiness and objectivity by imitating the speech of the “heartland.” Eventually, when radio announcers and TV journalists began sounding like they were from the Midwest, the “broadcaster’s dialect” became understood as normal.

Ah. I’ll grant that because it’s an accent that guy liked, it became a prevalent accent in news and popular media.

I’d still push back on it being bland, since that’s still just familiarity. Someone who grew up in rural Appalachia without electricity hearing it for the first time would find it quite thick and probably make fun of it and find ways to exaggerate it.

Ah, I see you've never worked in front end customer service, food service, or retail

And certainly not in cars.

I don't consider moral panic a good reason

Yes!

But you see this way the state has to buy billions of dollars of machines.

What the fuck do punch card ballots have to do with pen and paper?

Here in Sweden votes usually take about a week to finish counting, including re-checks and such. It's not so bad.

What is bad is that we're 40 days in and the government still hasn't been established. Useless pieces of shit.

Punch card ballots are supposed to be much better than pen/pencil and paper and that ended in disaster.

That's a big yikes. WSMV looks like a perfectly reasonable local news source based In Tennessee, and it's not even owned by Sinclair!

This looks like local tech issues and not an attempt to steal an election. But with how openly Republicans have been saying they're going to try something to ratfuck this election, and the amount of bullshit from LW politics mods, suppressing this story is not okay.

Well you can't rig it as easily if you fill in the bubble with a pen. Use your brain for a sec, duh. You europeans just don't GET us. /s

I see this all the time with touch screens. People float their finger over the screen and end up selecting something.

Bunch of loosers.

But with how openly Republicans have been saying they’re going to try something to ratfuck this election

You mean like this?

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/us/politics/justice-dept-alaska-senate-race-sullivan.html

Change Tennessee to California.

Yeah. It's kinda odd how feds didn't get involved all those tines when it was a Republican intentionally trying to fuck with the Dem candidate.

or tankies. they actually dont believe the election was rigged or stolen in the machines.

the gop is completely driven by Social media algorhitims.

the conservative states, use voter mahcines much more pervasively than the non-conservative areas. paper ballots have always been more secure.

and who owns these machines, gop backe dcompanies.