Electronic voting machine

Claim 1

An electronic voting machine for use by a voter in casting a vote in an election, said machine comprising: a display panel, said panel including a plurality of selectively energized light sources located in pre-determined regions of said panel and means for locating a transparent overlay on said panel in registry with said regions, said overlay having printed thereon the names of the candidates to be voted upon and the party affiliation of said candidates, a keyboard associated with said panel, said keyboard including a plurality of touch actuated switches with at least one switch being associated with each candidate, a micro processor coupled by buffer means to said switches and to said light sources of said panel, said micro processor including means for accepting programming instructions that determine the responses of said light sources to said switches, said micro processor further including a scratch pad memory for storing the data indicating the nature of the state of said lamps on said panel, means for altering any of the switch selected choices of said voter during the balloting of said voter, a permanant memory for storing the contents of said scratch pad memory, means for transfering the contents of said scratch pad memory to said permanent memory upon completion of the selection process by said voter, means responsive to said transfer for rendering said machine inoperative until a subsequent voter is permitted access to said machine, and means for programming said micro processor to conform the operation of said keyboard to said overlay in accordance with said election.