Electronic voting system

Abstract

An electronic voting system with a headquarters unit, a plurality of precinct units, a plurality of voting stations associated with each precinct unit, and a plurality of mobile memory units (MMUs) to contain data that can be transported back and forth between the headquarters unit and the precinct units. The MMUs include FLASH memory, wherein each memory location can be written to once and read many times. Each memory location can thus only be subsequently written to after all the data in the entire FLASH memory has been erased. The system includes the ability to store images of the cast ballots at multiple locations for verification and authentication. The system includes the ability to store a direct representation of the voter's selections as displayed to the voter as a redundant image of the ballot. The system also includes the ability for each voting station to automatically read the particular ballot overlay thereon to verify the proper ballot style is being used. The system also includes the ability to communicate between the various components of the system when the components are in a storage configuration. The various components of the system can be folded from a deployed configuration into the storage configuration so that the largest two-dimensional aspect in the storage configuration is a fraction of that in the deployed configuration. The system also includes a remote sensing terminal and a text-to-speech converter for use by disabled persons. An absentee ballot that can be read by the voting system is also provided as is the ability to vote over a computer network, such as the Internet.