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Edited on Sun Oct-10-04 05:49 PM by claudiajean
The manufacturers of the DRE's do not want printers attached to the devices because at some point, people will figure out that they are not as precise as the marketing departments would like us to believe and that will interfere with their profit making abilities.
However, insidiously, the argument for the DRE's as they are marketed to elections officials and county commissioners around the country is that the cost of paper ballots for poll voters will be eliminated. (Absentee ballots must continue to be on mailable media, e.g. paper)
The cost of paper ballots, after the cost of payroll, is always the single highest expenditure in an election office budget. Ballot costs run from 25 cents to 50 cents per voter, depending upon the size and complexity of the jurisdiction. For a large jurisdiction (say a million voters) in a state with many election dates throughout the year, the cost savings over the course of the year could be 2 - 3 million dollars.
For cash strapped local governments, and that's pretty much all of them, this seems on the surface a very attractive way to help balance an increasingly squeezed budget.
And of course, the manufacturers have no reason to point out that their products are not as foolproof as they say they are. So the election official gets no independent assessment of the efficacy of the devices, the manufacturers balk at providing paper ballot capability (even in the form of a voter verified tape), calling it a change order, and threatening to charge outrageous sums, as Diebold put it in an internal memo, "up the ying-yang", of any jurisdiction that demands this feature, and the county commissioners are telling the election office, buy these machines because we are cutting your budget, and you won't be able to run an election otherwise.
The only election officials that have successfully defended using systems with a voter verified paper ballot in the face of the paper ballot cost issue with any effectiveness are those who are seperately and directly elected public officials in their own right, so they serve no other master than the will and the best interests of their constituents, the voters of their county/state. If their only mission is to run fair, accurate, open elections, then they are much better equipped to argue for the expensive, but more secure and accurate methodology.
Another reason that all top decision making election officials should be directly elected by the people, not appointed and serving at the pleasure of the county commission, administrator, executive or mayor.
It is also a reason that the development of election equipment should not be privatized, but should be entirely government developed and vetted, so all acitivites surrounding the development and use will fall under FoIA laws, and have at least a bit of sunshine upon the process.
Edited because some days I can neither spell nor type...
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