Re: Georgia: 22,000 Voting Machines

["Janet Krueger" <Janet_Krueger@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Coming from a technologically challenged country over the pond where we
> still mark crosses on bits of paper and put them in a box (and yes, even
> that goes wrong - the returning officer is supposed to stamp the paper,
> and if this is missed it's not valid, etc. etc.), I have just read the
> article to which a link was provided, and am both fascinated and
horrified
> by how easy it would be for someone to subvert democracy with this sort
of
> thing going on. I am particularly amazed by the evident lack of
> comprehension of the impact of this problem among those who were
> interviewed about it by the journalist - surely someone(s) should have
> been fired, or at least resigned, over this?

It is possible to move to electronic voting with touch screens and still
create a paper trail where every vote is recorded on paper and can be
recounted if questions arise. Note recent articles about Dill's resolution
on electronic voting:

http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/report/news/2003/february5/dillsr-25.html

                                               
 Excerpt: More than 110 computer scientists    
 and technologists from universities and       
 laboratories across the nation have signed    
 Dill's "Resolution on Electronic Voting,"     
 which states that it is "crucial that voting  
 equipment provide a voter-verifiable audit    
 trail, by which we mean a permanent record of 
 each vote that can be checked for accuracy by 
 the voter before the vote is submitted, and   
 is difficult or impossible to alter after it  
 has been checked."                            
                                               




Unfortunately, such a system was not in place in Georgia, and tends to be
more expensive to implement, as there have to be working printers at every
polling place in addition to terminals...

Janet Krueger
Rochester