Editing Voting machine (section)

===Mechanical voting===
====Balls====
The first major proposal for the use of voting machines came from the [[Chartists]] in the United Kingdom in 1838.<ref>Douglas W. Jones, Early Requirements for Mechanical Voting Systems, [https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5460390 First International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for E-voting Systems], August 31, 2009, Atlanta. ([http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/ReVote09history.pdf author's copy] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120805163717/http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/ReVote09history.pdf |date=August 5, 2012 }}).</ref>  Among the radical reforms called for in ''The People's Charter'' were [[universal suffrage]] and voting by [[secret ballot]].  This required major changes in the conduct of elections, and as responsible reformers, the Chartists not only demanded reforms but described how to accomplish them, publishing ''Schedule A'', a description of how to run a polling place, and ''Schedule B'', a description of a voting machine to be used in such a polling place.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/peoplescharterwi00workrich The People's Charter with the Address to the Radical Reformers of Great Britain and Ireland and a Brief Sketch of its Origin] Elt and Fox, London, 1848; obverse of title page.</ref><ref>[http://www.abdn.ac.uk/radicalism/display.php?id=RAD144 The People's Charter] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118193215/https://www.abdn.ac.uk/radicalism/display.php?id=RAD144 |date=November 18, 2018 }} 1839 Edition, in the [http://www.abdn.ac.uk/radicalism/ radicalism collection] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118194042/https://www.abdn.ac.uk/radicalism/ |date=November 18, 2018 }} of the [[University of Aberdeen]].</ref>

The Chartist voting machine, attributed to Benjamin Jolly of 19 York Street in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]], allowed each voter to cast one vote in a single race.  This matched the requirements of a British parliamentary election.  Each voter was to cast his vote by dropping a brass ball into the appropriate hole in the top of the machine by the candidate's name.  Each voter could only vote once because each voter was given just one brass ball.  The ball advanced a clockwork counter for the corresponding candidate as it passed through the machine, and then fell out the front where it could be given to the next voter.

====Buttons====
In 1875, Henry Spratt of [[Kent]] received a U.S. patent for a voting machine that presented the ballot as an array of push buttons, one per candidate.<ref>H. W. Spratt, ''Improvement in Voting Apparatus,'' {{US patent|158652|U.S. Patent 158,652}}, Jan 12. 1875.</ref>  Spratt's machine was designed for a typical British election with a single [[Plurality voting system|plurality]] race on the ballot.

In 1881, Anthony Beranek of Chicago patented the first voting machine appropriate for use in a general election in the United States.<ref>A. C. Beranek, ''Voting Apparatus'', {{US patent|248130|U.S. Patent 248,130}}g, October 11, 1881.</ref>  Beranek's machine presented an array of push buttons to the voter, with one row per office on the ballot, and one column per party.  Interlocks behind each row prevented voting for more than one candidate per race, and an interlock with the door of the voting booth reset the machine for the next voter as each voter left the booth.

====Tokens====
The psephograph was patented by Italian inventor Eugenio Boggiano in 1907.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/graphicillustrat1907unse|title=The Graphic : an illustrated weekly newspaper|date=1869|publisher=London : Graphic|others=University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign}}</ref> It worked by dropping a metal token into one of several labeled slots. The psephograph would automatically tally the total tokens deposited in each slot. The psephograph was first used in a theatre in Rome, where it was used to gauge audience reception to a play: "good", "bad", or "indifferent".<ref>{{cite magazine| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bNlwYIji9YAC&q=boggiano| magazine=Harper's Weekly| year=1909| volume=53| title=Mechanical Criticism}}</ref>

====Analog computers====
Lenna Winslow's 1910 voting machine was designed to offer all the questions on the ballot to men and only some to women because women often had [[partial suffrage]], e.g. being allowed to vote on issues but not candidates. The machine had two doors, one marked "Gents" and the other marked "Ladies". The door used to enter the voting booth would activate a series of levers and switches to display the full ballot for men and the partial ballot for women.<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Voting Machine That Displayed Different Ballots Based on Your Sex|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/voting-machine-displayed-different-ballots-based-sex-180972434/|last=Kindy|first=David|date=June 26, 2019|website=Smithsonian Magazine|language=en|access-date=May 26, 2020|archive-date=November 1, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201101141144/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/voting-machine-displayed-different-ballots-based-sex-180972434/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Lenna Winslow, {{US patent|963105|U.S. patent 963,105}}, which drew from her earlier voting machine designs.<!-- with thanks to a slide in the Smithsonian's https://museum.archives.gov/rightfully-hers exhibit which I can't link directly to--></ref>

====Dials====
By July 1936, [[IBM]] had mechanized voting and ballot tabulation for [[single transferable vote]] elections. Using a series of dials, the voter could record up to twenty ranked preferences to a [[punched card]], one preference at a time. Write-in votes were permitted. The machine prevented a voter from [[Spoilt vote|spoiling]] their ballot by skipping rankings and by giving the same ranking to more than one candidate. A standard punched-card counting machine would tabulate ballots at a rate of 400 per minute.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Hallett|first=George H.|date=July 1936|title=Proportional representation|journal=National Municipal Review|language=en|volume=25|issue=7|pages=432–434|doi=10.1002/ncr.4110250711|issn=0190-3799}}</ref>

[[File:voting machine.png|thumb|Demo version of lever style voting machine on display at the [[National Museum of American History]]]]

====Levers====
Lever machines were commonly used in the United States until the 1990s.  In 1889, [[Jacob H. Myers]] of [[Rochester, New York]], received a patent for a voting machine that was based on Beranek's 1881 push button machine.<ref>Jacob H. Myers, ''Voting Machine'', {{US patent|415549|U.S. Patent 415,549}}, November 19, 1889.</ref>  This machine saw its first use in [[Lockport (city), New York|Lockport, New York]], in 1892.<ref>[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B04E0DB1F39E233A25750C1A9629C94639ED7CF Republicans Carry Lockport; The New Voting Machine Submitted to a Practical Test] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819212034/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B04E0DB1F39E233A25750C1A9629C94639ED7CF |date=August 19, 2016 }}, in the [https://www.nytimes.com New York Times] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200312005902/https://www.nytimes.com/ |date=March 12, 2020 }}, Wed. April 13, 1892; page 1.</ref>  In 1894, Sylvanus Davis added a straight-party lever and significantly simplified the interlocking mechanism used to enforce the vote-for-one rule in each race.<ref>S. E. Davis, ''Voting Machine,'' {{US patent|src=uspto|526668|U.S. Patent 526,668}}, September 25, 1894.</ref>  By 1899, Alfred Gillespie introduced several refinements.  It was Gillespie who replaced the heavy metal voting booth with a curtain that was linked to the cast-vote lever, and Gillespie introduced the lever by each candidate name that was turned to point to that name in order to cast a vote for that candidate.  Inside the machine, Gillespie worked out how to make the machine programmable so that it could support races in which voters were allowed to vote for, for example, 3 out of 5 candidates.<ref>A. J. Gillespie, ''Voting-Machine'', {{US patent|628905|U.S. Patent 628,905}}, July 11, 1899.</ref>

On December 14, 1900, the U.S. Standard Voting Machine Company was formed, with Alfred Gillespie as one of its directors, to combine the companies that held the Myers, Davis, and Gillespie patents.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=kCE7AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA773 The Manual of Statistics:  Stock Exchange Hand-book, 1903], The Manual of Statistics Company, New York, 1903; page 773.</ref>  By the 1920s, this company (under various names) had a monopoly on voting machines, until, in 1936, [[Shoup Voting Machine Corporation|Samuel and Ransom Shoup]] obtained a patent for a competing voting machine.<ref>Samuel R. Shoup and Ransom F. Shoup, ''Voting Machine'', {{US patent|2054102|U.S. Patent 2,054,102}}, September 15, 1936.</ref>  By 1934, about a sixth of all presidential ballots were being cast on mechanical voting machines, essentially all made by the same manufacturer.<ref>Joseph Harris, Voting Machines, Chapter VII of [http://www.vote.nist.gov/election_admin.htm Election Administration in the United States] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090831084621/http://vote.nist.gov/election_admin.htm |date=August 31, 2009 }}, Brookings, 1934; pages 249 and 279–280.</ref>

Commonly, a voter enters the machine and pulls a lever to close the curtain, thus unlocking the voting levers. The voter then makes his or her selection from an array of small voting levers denoting the appropriate candidates or measures. The machine is configured to prevent overvotes by locking out other candidates when one candidate's lever is turned down. When the voter is finished, a lever is pulled which opens the curtain and increments the appropriate counters for each candidate and measure. At the close of the election, the results are hand copied by the precinct officer, although some machines could automatically print the totals. New York was the last state to stop using these machines, under court order, by the fall of 2009.<ref>[http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070810/NEWS01/708100363 "Lever voting machines get a reprieve in NY"], ''[[Press & Sun-Bulletin]]'' ([[Binghamton, New York]]), August 10, 2007{{dead link|date=March 2021}}</ref><ref>Ian Urbina. [https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/us/politics/05voting.html States Prepare for Tests of Changes to Voting System] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125122457/https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/us/politics/05voting.html |date=January 25, 2021 }}, ''[[New York Times]]'', February 5, 2008</ref>