Election Systems & Software Votomatic voting machine

The Votomatic voting machine, manufactured by Election Systems & Software, was the technology that once dominated the US market for voting equipment is responsible for introducing the now-infamous terms hanging and dimpled chads into the election lexicon.

The Votomatic features a stylus and a paginated ballot keyed to an underlying punch card.

Problems with the Votomatic were known as early as the late 60’s; Roy Saltman of the National Bureau of Standards, who called for abandoning the technology in the mid 80’s, was all but ignored. It wasn’t until the election of 2000, when the Florida vote was close enough to necessitate a recount, that misaligned ballot cards and a confusing butterfly ballot design exposed the unreliability of punch card ballots.

The only state still using Votomatic in 2008 was Idaho.