Reply #18: The overwhelming sense of urgency I feel about November's vote [View All]

[seafan]

is what drives me to advocate nothing else right now, except hand-counted paper ballots, marked with a permanent pen, marking an "X" in the box beside the chosen candidate's name.

While I don't disagree that voting electronics may be ironed out correctly in the future, especially when Republicans are no longer in control, for the immediate future, I really do not see any other emergency measure to ensure accuracy and reproducibility of the count, other than by hand-counted, marked, paper ballots.



This story is in today's news:


I-Team 8 Finds More Problems with ES&S Voting Equipment
April 5, 2006 04:42 PM

snip

Jackson blames the vendor, Election Systems and Software (ES&S).

"This is not fair to the voters of Johnson County, the taxpayers. They've paid for this equipment. They've paid for this service, and this is not acceptable," Jackson said.

What's missing is a "smart card" that allows you to vote. For now, copied paper ballots will have to do for absentee voting. Johnson County and nearly two-dozen others across the state don't have the official paper ballots.

The chairman of the Indiana Election Commission is angry. "It's inexcusable that ES&S did not get those ballots to those people," said Tom Wheeler, Indiana Election Commission chair.

The machine that counts the ballots considers a ballot defective if it is not official. If that is the case, when it comes out, somebody from the election board has to count the vote by hand.

I-Team 8 has also learned the batteries that came with Johnson County's $2.4 million equipment are old and failing. At least nine other counties have the same problem. If the battery fails, the internal ballots and all the votes cast will be lost.

"That's the problem with paperless ballots and no trail balloting. They're gone," Wheeler said.

snip

http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4726545&nav=menu35_3


I feel that we are in a state of emergency for an accurate vote count in this November's critical election. Like never before.