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Elections Dept to explore use of ballot-counting machines
They would increase efficiency if approved for use; paper ballots would still be sorted by hand first
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Boxes being sealed at a polling station during 2015’s General Election. The Elections Department hopes to use ballot-counting machines that will beat humans in accuracy and speed to tally votes.
PHOTO: ST FILE
Ng Jun Sen
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The Elections Department (ELD) is looking at using ballot-counting machines to tally votes after they have been sorted, The Straits Times has learnt. Paper ballots are currently manually counted by hand.
These stand-alone mechanical counting machines, which resemble the cash-counting machines used in banks, will not be networked or connected to the Internet, thus removing the risk of hackers interfering with the election process.
