The small town in Missouri where I live actually uses the portable punch card system. It's basically a portable 2' plastic desk with fold up sides that provide 3 side walls. There are 4 screw-in legs that make it into a desk. The ballot card is inserted into a slot at the top and there is a booklet with the candidates names on it. There are round holes in the booklet where you punch a stylus. The stylus looks like an oversized push pin. You can't see the "computer card/ballot" while you are voting. There is no way to know which hole in the card matches a specific candidate. There is also no way to know if two were punched in the same category. There is no way to know if you actually punched through because there is no indication or light that passes through the punched hole. There is a good picture of the actual Florida ballot in the article http://giantstep.com/ballot_usability/ /---------| / | | x | | z | | y | | | | | | | | | ------------ x = vote for candidate #1 z = vote for candidate #2 y = vote for candidate #3 I think we have about 300 voters in our community. If there are more than 4 people in line then that's a big line. We have 3 voting locations, a school, a church, and a community club. Actually when we vote for school board, the top three vote getters are usually elected. Some positions are uncontested and some have no candidates. Some times there are elections with only 1 or 2 races. Mike mmcfadden(a)cmh.edu