http://www.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/voting/colloq/
Jones Talk, Slide 5

A Brief History of Voting Technology

• Punched Card Voting
  -- First use, Fulton & DeKalb Counties, Georgia, 1964.
  -- Dominant voting technology in US by 1980.
  • Essentially a modified Australian ballot.
  • Votomatic voting machine is a fixture to help "mark" ballots.
  • (Datavote punch is somewhat better but rare.)
  
  -- Weakness: Voter cannot verify correctness of ballot!
  -- Weakness: Careless handling can dislodge chad.
  -- Weakness: Dangling chad evades common sense.

  All physical ballots have a marginal mark problem. Interpreting marginal marks always raises subjective issues.

  -- Strength: Recount is possible.
  -- Strength: Standard computer and tab machines can read cards.
  -- Strength: Machine count is very fast and can be very accurate.