New York state voters this year are voting on paper ballots, called mark-sense ballots.  Voters use a marking device to fill in an oval next to the voter’s choice.  Then those marked paper ballots are inserted into a machine that reads those marks and tabulates the votes.  Prior to this year, New York used mechanical voting machines, which had been invented in 1892, and are called “lever machines”.

Mark-sense ballots are now the most popular method for voting in the United States.  They do provide a paper trail, so voters have more confidence in them than they do in electronic-screen voting systems.

Unfortunately, the New York paper ballots have tiny type, smaller than those in use in any other state.  See this story.  UPDATE:  here is another story, published September 12.  The reason for the tiny type is that New York state legislators insist on retaining an archaic law that says the entire face of the ballot must be visible at a single glance.  Unlike almost all other states that use mark-sense ballots, New York paper ballots don’t present each office in turn, with an orderly list of candidates for that particular office.  Instead the New York paper ballot is very large (eleven inches by seventeen inches), and retains the party column style.  New York’s party column style makes it difficult for voters to find some candidates.  When there are nine or more parties on the ballot, two parties must share the same column, creating no easy means for any voter to see a list of all the candidates for any one particular office.

In most other states with mark-sense ballots, there can be more than one ballot card, but that is illegal in New York.

New York also uses touch-screen ballots as an alternative, mostly for the use of disabled voters, although any voter is free to use the touch-screen.  The touch-screen ballot format does present each office in turn, with an orderly list of all the candidates running for that particular office.  To see what New York ballots look like, here is a link to a 10-minute you tube produced by the New York city League of Women Voters.  At about four minutes and 30 seconds into the event, a woman in the audience asks why the ballots have such small type that each voting booth has a magnifying glass.  The spokesperson for the Board of Elections makes it clear that the Board is unhappy about that, but the legislature is the culprit.  The paper ballot shown in the you tube is not a real ballot, and has only five party columns.  The actual November ballot will probably have ten party columns so the actual ballot will be far more confusing.  Thanks to Elizabeth Sandor for the link to the you tube.