A survey of 421 Muncie voters found that 33 percent supported the paper ballots voting system, Joseph Losco, Department of Political Science chair, said.
"Voters want some kind of receipt of their vote," Losco said.
However, when Congress passed The Help America Vote Act in 2002, touch-screens were suggested as an alternative voting system. Because of the 2000 voting problems in Florida, paper ballots will decertify in December 2005, Karen Wenger, Delaware County Clerk, said.
On Nov. 2, voting systems varied from county to county and from state to state. Oregon for example, used voting through postal service. Other states like California, Washington, and Florida used a combination of all systems available.
As this election worked as a sampling of voting systems, it helped voters compare and decide what kind of system they prefer.
The Center for Media Design surveyed the Muncie voter's preference in voting systems from eight choices: electronic kiosks, Internet, paper ballot, television, telephone, postal service, PDA and cell phone.
Muncie voters' second choice was Internet voting. Yet this system is the most unlikely to be picked by congressmen because of its high risk of fraud and invasion of privacy. It is hard to determine whether the person voting is the person registered to vote, or if someone else connected to the Web can see other people's votes, Bonnie Krupa, testing project manager for the center, said.
"There is no way to warrantee privacy [with Internet voting]," Krupa said.
Aside from security issues, Losco said Internet voting raises social issues as well.
"Sitting home and voting takes away from the communal act," he said.
The third most rated choice in the poll was touch-screen kiosks.
"The problem is there's no backup," Gary Crawley, assistant professor of political science, said.
Crawley said paper ballots are a good system because there is tangible evidence of the votes. He said that he questions why the government should spend money to change a voting system that already works.
Paper ballots work as an efficient voting system by controlling and supervising voting to avoid episodes such as the Florida problems in 2000, Losco said.
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