Miami-Dade's elections chief wants to boot touch-screen system

[rainbow4321]

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/content/state/epaper/2005/06/06/m1a_voting_0606.html


A new South Florida elections chief wants to dump the electronic touch-screen voting system he inherited from a previous administration. The recommendation isn't from Palm Beach County's Arthur Anderson, who campaigned with much fanfare against paperless voting last year, but from new Miami-Dade Elections Supervisor Lester Sola, who was appointed in April.

Coming from a county that has more than 1 million voters and was among the first in the nation to embrace touch-screen technology, Sola's recommendation could have an "absolutely huge" impact on the national debate over voting machines, says Pamela Smith of Verifiedvoting.org, a leading opponent of paperless voting.

<snip>

Anderson downplayed any parallels between Miami-Dade, which uses Elections Systems & Software touch screens, and Palm Beach County, which uses touch screens made by Sequoia Voting Systems. "I don't see where it has an application in Palm Beach County at all. They're using a different system," Anderson said last week.

<snip>
Paperless voting foe Lida Rodriguez-Taseff of the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition called Sola's recommendation "a good first step." But she said optical-scan ballots can be difficult for people with disabilities or who don't speak English as their primary language. Rodriguez-Taseff wants elections officials to explore alternatives, such as a hybrid system in which voters use a touch screen to mark a paper ballot.

[sasquatch]

1. Thank Christ for that

O8)

[MasonJar]

2. Give me a WHOOPIE pillow now!

[marions ghost]

3. no "hybrid systems"

except for disabled ...

PAPER ballots (using optiscan with random hand counts) is best for others

Print instructions in Spanish --non-English speakers are not stupid --give them some minimal aids and they can do it