Voting Machines, Chinese Spaceplane, and God's Algorithm

Voting machines are devices used to cast, record, or count votes. The first widely used voting machine was introduced in the 1890s and relied on levers to cast votes, which were recorded by mechanical counters. Since then, technological advancements have introduced electronic systems that provide greater accessibility and faster ballot counting, though critics have expressed concerns about their security.

> Thomas Edison's first patented invention was a voting machine.
> Special circumstances caused lever-operated voting machines to be restored for New York City elections in 2013.

In the US, the most common voting machines are optical scanners, which read paper ballots that often resemble bubble sheets used in multiple-choice exams. Many polling stations also feature ballot marking devices, in which selections made on a touch screen are captured on a printed ballot or equivalent summary card. All ballots are scanned on-site or at centralized locations. In a small minority of jurisdictions, votes are cast and stored in the memory of direct-recording electronic machines, sometimes without a paper trail.

> View how the use of voting machines has changed since 1988.

> ... and find out what voting equipment is used in your jurisdiction with this map.

Before elections, voting machines undergo logic and accuracy testing, while postelection checks verify tallies before results are certified. Recounts are facilitated by paper records, which were available for about 98% of votes cast in the US in 2024. While no technology is hacker-proof, paper audits, keeping machines offline, and maintaining chain-of-custody logs for ballots and equipment help secure elections.

> See how election officials test voting machines and track ballots in a polling place.

> Before election results are certified, a statistical analysis of a sample of ballots can help check the accuracy of voting machines.

Discover more: 

> Reports of voting machines flipping votes are likely the result of human error and miscalibration in old machines.

> In 2003, an electronic vote count was seemingly altered by cosmic radiation.

> Hackers intentionally try to find and report vulnerabilities in voting machines and other election infrastructure at Voting Village.

Keep learning by exploring all our findings on Voting Machines here.

News in Context

1440 brings you the knowledge and context behind the week's stories:

The world's largest artificial reef will be created after the SS United States is purposely sunk off the Gulf Coast later this month. (More)

> Decommissioned oil rigs have also been repurposed into artificial reefs.

> ... and researchers have 3D-printed artificial reefs out of biodegradable clay.

The first US deep-sea mining leases were scheduled for auction and include almost 32 million acres of seafloor off the coast of American Samoa. (More)

> Deep-sea mining for most nations—not the US—is managed by the International Seabed Authority.

> See which nations have been awarded deep-sea mining contracts by the ISA.

A high-res photograph of China's "Divine Dragon" spaceplane was released in an unclassified Defense Intelligence Agency report. (More, w/photo)

> The uncrewed spaceplane is launched by a rocket before gliding into an orbit around Earth, resembling the space shuttle.

> ... and can deploy and catch objects, potentially with a tool resembling the space shuttle's Canadarm.

Van Gogh's "The Starry Night" matched what the night sky looked like before dawn on July 22, 1889, according to a forensic astronomy project. (More)

> Even though he had no scientific knowledge of it, Van Gogh's painting accurately depicts turbulence.

> See what the night sky looks like anywhere on Earth and at any point in history with this online planetarium.

Research Spotlight

Like all great researchers, we love spending time learning about the latest breakthroughs across science and technology. Here's what we found this week.

Colliding stars may have fueled early supermassive black hole formation.

UCLA | Holly Ober. Simulations show that the greater density of the early universe made these collisions more common, with some destroying stars and releasing gas, while others formed massive stars that become black holes. Within a star cluster, these events could create an enormous black hole and fuel its growth enough to create the supermassive black holes present in the young universe. (More)

> These mergers can produce a relatively rare stellar byproduct: a blue straggler.

> Watch a 3D visualization of the formation of a black hole via a stellar merger.

Geological record shows an earthquake turning solids into a lubricating fluid.

Osaka Metropolitan University | Staff. An analysis of exposed rock faces identified structures indicative of turbulent flow in rock layers associated with an earthquake that occurred about 15 million years ago. These structures suggest that the pressure and released energy from the geologic event caused clay in the layers to behave like water, which could have amplified fault slippage enough to trigger a tsunami. (More)

> See a demonstration of liquefaction, in which solid surfaces behave like liquids.

> Variations in the properties of different rocks, including their melting points, make earthquakes extremely difficult to predict.

Researchers develop a method to archive and track cellular activity for days.   

ETH Zurich | Fabio Bergamin. Current measurements of which genes are active in cells rely on collecting RNA molecules, which destroys cells and only provides information on their status at the time of collection. In the new method, specialized proteins enable cells themselves to archive RNA molecules around their mitochondria for several days in a film that protects them from degradation. (More)

> RNA may be the starting point for all life on Earth, but how does it differ from DNA?

> Evidence suggests that mitochondria were once independent cells of their own.

A new battery-free temperature sensor runs on background radiation.

University of Arkansas | Staff. Instead of using batteries or connecting to an electrical outlet, the device's graphene inductor collects ambient energy from the magnetic fields generated by electrical wires running through a building's walls. A custom circuit converts the alternating current induced by these fields into a direct current that charges the device faster than it consumes energy. (More)

> Alternating current can make objects levitate through magnetic field interactions.

> Ambient energy could, in principle, also be harvested from background radiation, which most people are exposed to every day.

Etcetera

> What makes some sunsets more colorful and vibrant than others?

> Watch an octopus change color while it sleeps—a potential sign that it dreams.

> No matter what steps you take to scramble a Rubik's Cube, repeating the same sequence will eventually restore the cube to its initial state.

> ... but you can solve it in fewer than 21 steps if you know one of God's algorithms.

> Light slows down anytime it travels through a transparent material, but why?

> Rock glaciers may help abate the rapid melting of the world's ice reserves.
 

> Oxygen is magnetic enough that it can form a bridge between two magnets.

> Strawberries may not be berries, but each of their external "seeds" is a fruit.

> If someone detonated a nuclear weapon in the deepest part of the ocean, would you notice?

> Despite the name, millipedes generally do not have 1,000 legs, though they do get more as they age.

> Putting up with toxicity is not recommended, but it may be why we have pumpkins.

> Explain physical quantities in unfamiliar units, such as light-years, smoots, and shakes, in terms people are more likely to understand with this conversion tool.