From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Feb. 9, 1975:

“The computer age is making itself felt even on the time-honored process of casting a ballot,” stated an article in today’s Journal-World. Proposed legislation currently before the Kansas House Elections Committee would allow counties, with voter approval, to buy or lease electronic voting systems. Rather than marking ballots by hand, voters would “mark” a sample ballot displayed on a special device, which would cause a data processing “punch card” to be punched mechanically. The marked cards would then be run through a computer, which would rapidly scan them, separating the votes for each candidates and tallying them almost simultaneously. A new expanded computer system, already approved for joint purchase by the county, city, and school district and scheduled to be installed this summer, could be used for the process if the proposal were approved, according to Jim Tate, county data processing director. The new program would be able to read cards at about 800 to 1,000 per minute, he said.