VOTING BY MACHINERY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXV, Issue 211, 5 September 1891, Page 4

VOTING BY MACHINERY.

A Belgian engineer has recently made known a cnriouß invention which he has patented, in the form of a machine for registering votes. He claims for it absolute secrecy, impartiality, and correctness of registration. In appearance the machine is said to resemble a piano or small harmonium. The keys are a series of electric buttons, on which the voter has to .press when registering his vote A list of the candidates takes the place of the music on an ordinary piano, and to each name, there is a corresponding button on the keyboard. The inventor proposes to place the photograph of eaoh candidate over his name, bo that illiterate voters cannot make a mistake. In the interior of the machine is the register which shows the numbers registered in units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. These cannot be Been without unlocking the machine, and cannob be tampered with. Various ingenious contrivances have been invented to prevent fraud. If the number of candidates be five, the machine is adjusted so as to register five only until the voter leaves the platform in front of the machine. It is also impossible to register two votes by pressing the same button, or knob, twice. To do so the voter must descend from the platform and allow some seconds to elapse. There is also a key, or knob, which registers blank, so that the voter may register blank if he so desires, without anyone being the wiser. To know the result of the voting, the machine has only to be unlocked, when the total of votes for each candidate is seen at a glance. This of itßeif would be a decided gain, aa the counting of the votes at elections is always a tiresome and thankless task,