Ballot marking device

A ballot marking device (BMD) or vote recorder is a type of voting machine used by voters to record votes on physical ballots. In general, ballot marking devices neither store nor tabulate ballots, but only allow the voter to record votes on ballots that are then stored and tabulated elsewhere.

The first ballot marking device emerged in the late 19th century, but were only widely used starting in the 1960s. Today, electronic ballot markers (EBMs) have come into widespread use as assistive devices in the context of optical scan voting systems. In the context of paper ballots, pens and pencils are used to record votes on ballots, but they are general-purpose items.

There is no consensus about the terminology used to refer to ballot marking devices or electronic ballot markers, and where a jurisdiction uses one term, there is frequently no reference to the other. For example, Hart InterCivic and the state of Colorado only list BMD and ballot marking device in their glossaries. The Minnesota and IEEE P 1622 glossaries, on the other hand, refer to EBM and electronic ballot marker (or electronically-assisted ballot marker). The Canadian government appears to prefer the term assistive voting device.

These terms are not, strictly speaking, synonyms. Ballot marking device defines a broad category, while electronic ballot marker excludes older mechanical devices, and assistive voting device only applies when the device serves as an assistive device.

The first ballot marking devices specifically designed for use in elections emerged in the late 19th century along with proposals to use various punched-card ballot forms. Kennedy Dougan filed for patents on a punched-card system using a ballot marking device in 1890. Urban Iles filed a proposal for a more sophisticated system in 1892. The patents for these machines suggest that their primary goal was to provide for mechanical vote tabulation while retaining paper ballots that could be used to verify the operation of the tabulator in the event of any question. The punched cards used by these early machines were not designed to be compatible with any other data processing equipment.

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