It's been a long time since I have voted with simple pen and paper. In Oregon most of the years that I lived there, we used the lever that lined up with the candidates and punched out a square hole. It could be that that was the same method as used in Florida. It is the same method that was used in Alaska the first 10 years I was here.

At a certain point Alaska bought a new system, an Optical Scanner. This one kind of went back to the pen and paper format- you blacken the ovals, put the card into its sleeve and go over and feed it into the scanner. It is easily recounted, whether by machine or by hand.

Even in that system, however, there is a certain intuitive element in reading it. Human beings are not always mistake-free- sometimes they/we blacken TWO ovals, hoping that one is darker than the others, perhaps. I think it should be stressed by the election boards that "If you mess it up, come get another card". I have never heard anyone say that, and my guess is that some voters think that 'starting over' would be illegal. As though it were a test.