Optical scan voting system

Voters mark their choice in a voting response location, usually filling a rectangle, circle or oval, or by completing an arrow.

Typical ballot markers include a touch screen and a variety of assistive devices to serve the needs of voters with disabilities.

[5] The Jites and Digivote systems used in Belgium are similar to this, although they use magnetic stripe cards instead of bar codes to record the ballot.

This technology was expected to be used in the 2008 Hamburg state elections, but eventually was decided against due to controversy surrounding the accuracy of voting tallies.

[17] The scanner's sensors detect black and white pixels on the paper ballot, at least in the areas designated for marking votes.

[18] The scanning machines are faster than hand-counting for long ballots, so are typically used during the election and the night afterwards, to give quick results.

There is less speed advantage in parliamentary systems where the member of parliament is the only contest on a ballot, so hand counting is fast and reliable.

[ambiguous] The paper ballots and electronic memories are stored, so election audits can check if the images and tallies are correct, and so investigations or court challenges can examine them.