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Show Tampmr-Proof Vole Devices Staging A Comeback By Boy Bobiaaoa The voting machine, like vaudeville, vaude-ville, la making a comeback. That may seem odd to today's voter, who thinks that a voting machine Is the latest wrinkle m csating a ballot But old-timers In the city and county, building remember the time when Bait Lake City and county took a "flier" In mechanized mechan-ized voting. That was soma 35 years ago, according to their recollections. The experience, however, was a sad one. After three years, the machines were stored and later sold. The lone survivor fell by the way when it was scrapped to aid the war effort in World War IL Could Be Fixed' Chief trouble with the device at that time. It seems, wss that it waa geared to political machines. ma-chines. It could be manipulated. The voter, thinking he wss easting east-ing a vote for one candidate, in all likelihood, waa easting a vota for the opposition If the machine had been tampered with. Another practice, common at the time, the old-timers recall, waa that hirelings of political machines ma-chines would Indulge in a round robin of voting. On election day, they would make the rounds of the districts with each one casting a ballot On a number of occasions, there were more votes cast la the machine than there were registered voters. The situation gave rise to a growing antagonism amongst the vote-casting public, which finally led to Junking of the devices. Recently Mayor Earl J. dads suggested that the city and county install the machines. Now Fool-Preof The modern, streamlined machine ma-chine la reputedly foolproof, tarn-perproof tarn-perproof and fraudproof . Many cities throughout the country are reconverting to mechanised voting. vot-ing. County Clerk Alvin Keddington views such a program pessimistically pessimis-tically as fsr as the financial angle ia concerned. To install the machines ma-chines in the city and county's 278 voting districts would call for an expenditure of over S500,000, he said. ' An alternative would be to Install In-stall the machines on a long-term program. Mr. Keddington said, however, that the modern voting machine ia by far the best method of casting a ballot and avoiding errors. |