Patents that Aimed to Revolutionize the Electoral Process

By Andrea Rodriguez

With the 2020 general election upon us, here are some ingenious patents through the decades that aimed to make the election process easier to all parties involved. Some of these patents and applications succeeded in improving the voting process during their time and some were ahead of their time and never made it to a general election, however all of them stemmed from the need to provide practicality and reliability to the electoral process.

The first patented voting machine, US 90,646, dates back to 1869 and was invented by no other than Thomas Edison, who would eventually go on to have 1093 patents to his name.  Edison’s machine recorded the ballots of legislators with the flip of a switch.  During this time, governmental bodies would vote by roll calling: every representative had to vote “aye” or “nay” out loud and a scribe would write and count each vote. (Reich, 2016)  Edison’s “Electric Vote Recorder” allowed each member to present an affirmative or opposing vote by moving a switch to either of two points of his electrographic apparatus, thus registering and counting votes in an instant.  Unfortunately, Edison’s first-ever patent was not as successful as he expected and was never well-received by legislators of the time.

Punch card voting systems arrived in the 1960s and were not completely phased out until 2014. The first of these machines was invented by a political science professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Joseph P. Harris. Harris had the idea of adopting IBM’s Port-A-Punch card punch and pre-scored cards and applying them for voting in 1964. With the help of mechanical engineer professor William Rouverol, the improvements to the Port-A-Punch system were patented in US 3,240,409.  Several counties in Oregon and California adopted the method in their elections that year. (ES&S Votomatic, n.d.)

Still widely used today, with several improvements since the 1964 original Votronic System, US 3,218,439, mark-sense scanners allow officials to scan a paper ballots and automatically tally the respective votes. Votronic patented the capability of sensing ordinary graphite pencil marks on the ballots, when earlier systems that applied optical mark sensing still required to use special inks to be identified by the scanners.

One voting method option that never caught on despite over a decade of discussion on the matter is voting through ATM machines. Barnet Liberman tried to patent a “System and method for electronic voting, using existing ATM network and ATMs associated therewith” in 2008 (US 20080173715). The main idea involved using special voting cards similar to credit cards and PINs to identify voters. ATM displays could easily adapt to present ballot information and the sturdy machines already have security features, like cameras, that are reliable enough that most people entrust them with their banking information. Other benefits of having a network of ATM machines in the voting process included little capital investment and flexibility in polling locations and polling hours. However, experts were not fond of the idea. Some argued that ATM locations are not particularly the safest places and could leave voters vulnerable to coercion. Moreover, just as with credit cards, there is no guarantee that PIN numbers will not be shared or sold, or that the ATM network would be safe for sharing millions of votes. (MacDonald, 2008)  These along with several other practicality issues are the reason why casting a vote will never be as simple as withdrawing $50 from your checking account.

As with other technologies, it is only expected that voting systems and methods will continue to evolve in the upcoming years. Some of these technologies will change the way millions of votes are cast and counted in future elections, but security and auditability will always be a priority of inventors and election officials.  The technologies that do not meet the practicality and reliability standards will be phased out even before they have a chance to be used in any elections.

This November 3rd don’t forget to vote!

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References

ES&S Votomatic. (n.d.). Retrieved from Verified Voting: https://verifiedvoting.org/election-system/ess-votomatic/

MacDonald, J. (2008, September 15). ATMs as voting machines: An idea whose time hasn’t come. Retrieved from CreditCards.com: https://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/atm-voting-machines-1273/

Reich, J. E. (2016, February 11). Thomas Edison's First Patented Invention Was An Electric Voting Machine. Retrieved from Tech Times: https://www.techtimes.com/articles/132791/20160211/thomas-edisons-first-patented-invention-could-have-drastically-changed-u-s-history.htm