Putting E-Voting to Rest (David Pogue, tech corresp. - NYT)

[swag]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/29/technology/circuits/29POGUE-EMAIL.html

Putting E-Voting to Rest

Published: July 29, 2004

David Pogue

To the immense credit of this column's readership, not a single person has written to complain that I've spent too much time and space on the topic of computerized voting machines. Still, with today's installment, I hope to wrap up my coverage of this topic, at least for now. It's becoming clear that this issue is just as contentious and polarizing as any other this election season, and few people's minds will be changed by continued discussion. Meanwhile, the more it becomes clear that there's no way to solve the problems in time for this fall's Presidential election, I'm getting a little depressed by the whole thing.

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But the paper trail, several of you wrote, is no panacea. Yes, it provides a secure method of performing a recount-but that's valuable only if it occurs to someone to PERFORM the recount. Trouble is, how will we know whether a recount is necessary? If one candidate wins the election by a 20 percent margin, will anybody realistically demand a recount? Does that mean we'll have to hand-count the results of every voting machine in America?

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The problem, of course, is that many states have already spent millions of dollars on self-contained touchscreen machines with no paper trail and no "op-scan" ballots. The states are not about to throw out all that equipment.


When I made this point to one of my correspondents, he wrote back: "A few million dollars? So what? We're spending $5 billion a MONTH trying to build a democracy in Iraq. Why not spend a tiny fraction of that to ensure a working democracy at home?"

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[Ironpost]

1. Sounds like the fix is in

It's a sad state we're in.

[lovedems]

2. My husband who is in the IT industry said you wouldn't have to scrap the

equipment, you just add to the current equipment some hardware and software and BAM! You have a paper trail. He said it wouldn't be costly either. Any other IT people who could elaborate on that?