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Voting Machines

From: William S. Hammack
Length: 02:26

The story of how voting machine began, in Australia, as gambling devices. Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Voting Machines
From: William S. Hammack

Default-piece-image-2 At the same time as Americans go to the polls, Australians head to the horse races. The first Tuesday of every November they watch the Melbourne Cup, betting 100 million dollars on its outcome. It's too cynical to think of our elections as a "crap shot" like a bet in a horse race, yet the two events have much in common. It was a voting machine that made both activities as honest and above board as possible. The piece tells the story of George Julius, inventor of an early voting machine used for collecting bets.

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Piece Description

At the same time as Americans go to the polls, Australians head to the horse races. The first Tuesday of every November they watch the Melbourne Cup, betting 100 million dollars on its outcome. It's too cynical to think of our elections as a "crap shot" like a bet in a horse race, yet the two events have much in common. It was a voting machine that made both activities as honest and above board as possible. The piece tells the story of George Julius, inventor of an early voting machine used for collecting bets.

Broadcast History

See series description, which might not be public yet. This is one commentary in a series of 100s on engineering, science, technology -- all told with a humanistic perspective.

Transcript

At the same time as Americans go to the polls, Australians head to the horse races. The first Tuesday of every November they watch the Melbourne Cup, betting 100 million dollars on its outcome. It's too cynical to think of our elections as a "crap shot" like a bet in a horse race, yet the two events have much in common. It was a voting machine that made both activities as honest and above board as possible. The story begins in Australia with an engineer named George Julius.
Julius inherited from his father, an Anglican Archbishop and a fiery, anti-gambling crusader, a bent for tinkering. He learned from a friend of voter fraud with paper ballots. So, Julius tinkered until he'd invented a voting machine that allowed no vote rigging. Proudly he submitted it to the Commonwealth Government. This tamper-proof machine, of course, scared politicians and so they rejected it.

Soon after this...
Read the full transcript