From the late 1950s to through the early 1970s, election districts grew to include millions of potential voters as federal legislation outlawed barriers to voting. Elections specialists looked for vote recording systems that could tap the processing power of computers. Computerized vote processing offered economy and speed—an advantage in reporting election returns to an expanding electorate accustomed to the immediacy of television news.
The Coyle was the first voting machine to turn a punch card into a ballot. The Coyle Voting Machines was developed by Martin A. Coyle and introduced in Butler and Greene Counties, Ohio, in 1961.
