As the nation's election officials struggle with problematic electronic voting machines, a new ballot-marking system initially designed for disabled voters could help solve a crucial problem--the lack of an auditable paper trail. . . .
Unveiled Wednesday by Vogue Election Products and Services, the AutoMARK ballot-marking system features touch-screen voting that operates in tandem with optical scanners. "We're actually getting a lot of interest to use the AutoMARK for all voters and not just for disabled people," said sales manager Rob Resuali in an interview.

The system has been perfected in the firm's research unit, but it won't be ready in time for use in the November national elections. Resuali said the AutoMARK will be tested in the field in November in Maricopa County, Arizona, where it will run in parallel with existing election equipment. The AutoMARK has also been successfully tested by the Michigan Commission for The Blind, he added.

Resuali said the AutoMARK terminal has been designed to meet the requirements established by the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002. The legislation was established after the voting fiascoes of the 2000 election. Since then, voting-machine manufacturers have struggled to perfect voting machines and bring them up to meet the HAVE requirements. One particularly onerous and heretofore unsolvable problem has been the inability of most voting machines to provide for reliable audit trails, required in elections when recounts are called for.

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