Orlando Sentinal: touch screens a failure; time to drop them and go to pen and paper!!!

[Amaryllis]

Merry Christmas!

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-ed24106dec24,0,2570714.story?coll=orl-opinion-headlines

EDITORIAL

Drop touch-screens
Our position: It's time to pull the plug on the failed experiment of electronic voting.

December 24, 2006

Nothing is more sacred or vital to the survival of democracy than the ability to cast a vote with the confidence that vote will be counted accurately.

And yet the very foundation of this principle was shaken by the fiasco in Sarasota County on Nov. 7, when ATM-styled touch-screen machines showed more than 18,000 voters made no choice in one of the most hotly contested congressional races in the country. After a ridiculous "recount" in name only, the official returns show that Republican Vern Buchanan defeated Democrat Christine Jennings in District 13 by 369 votes out of 238,249 counted.

But that result isn't worth the paper the electronic ballots were not printed on. Without a paper trail to independently validate the electronic vote, the mandatory recount amounted to hitting the rewind button and replaying the machines' sad song.

<snip>

Whatever happens in the race between Ms. Jennings and Mr. Buchanan, one thing is clear: The experiment with touch-screen voting is a failure. Florida and other states should scrap touch-screens and use the pen-and-paper ballots of the optical-scan method, allowing a verifiable, independent recount.

[yankhadenuf]

1. WooHoo !!! K&R

:party: :toast: :bounce: :applause: :woohoo:

That is a Merry Editorial indeed!

[bullimiami]

2. a beginning. but a very weak one.

it is so easy for them to point out the obvious glaring flaw in this one election while ignoring what so many have been up in arms about for years.

and what good are the optical scan machines if the paper ballots are not always randomly audited to veryify the machine tabulators.

[Contrite]

13. Exactly.

Which is why we should hand count top races and then run them through the machines, performing an audit of those races in the process. And state legislatures need to expand the audits for those machine-counted races, providing for much lower tolerances of error as well as a much larger percentage of audits, performed randomly AND on election night.

[flordehinojos]

3. YES !!!!!!!!

"touch screens a failure; time to drop them and go to pen and paper!!!"

should have been done sooooooo long ago. jeb may not have had a second term here in florida and the bushit boy may have gone his poppy's way: one term pRESIDENT!

[BeFree]

4. Yep

Kerry won. The exit polls showed it and the other proof is scattered here and there.

The world changed because of stolen elections.

[Kurovski]

5. Very, very good to see.

Here's another good part:

"Ms. Jennings is suing to challenge the election. Congress should do more than pay close attention to the case; it ought to mount its own investigation. The most fair resolution may well be holding a new election."

K&R.

[Divine Discontent]

6. excellent news

A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE READ THAT, or more.

we know kerry and gore both had elections stolen, we have evidence of major breakdowns at precincts where dems vote in majority, yet the same company can handle a gazillion ATM transaction with no flaws.

this is great news...

www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<--- check the new stuff out

[Dr.Phool]

7. Major problem

Kurt Browning, Pasco County SOE, and the new Secretary of State is a BIG supporter, and some would say a lobbyist and salesman, for ES&S paperless touch screens.

He still denies that there is a problem.

[woodsgirl]

8. Fla.

needs a revote on paper. In the Curtis/Feeny race, Feeny won but Curtis has enough voters who have said they voted for him to win. If the Buchanan/ Jennings race is investigated and not Curtis/Feeny...We will know the dems. aren't interested in election fraud. Curtis is an eye witness as to the way the whole mess got started. Feeny was involved in asking Curtis to design phony software for election machines. Anybody know what is happening to the RFK Jr. lawsuit against Diebold and all.

[Dr.Phool]

9. Same thing with the John Russell campaign.

He has affadavits from more voters than he was credited with. Also affadavits from people who were listed as having voted, but did not.

[petgoat]

10. More on Clint Curtis Challenge

http://www.bradblog.com/

And woodsgirl, welcome to DU! :hi:

[Imagevision]

11. Actually it's past due that we display anger & disproval with their arrogance not replacing bogus

software and machines that only produce errors in elections! what the hell is it going to take!!!

[Higans]

12. WWIII

[dem91203]

14. Hard Ware Is Easy To Fix Software Is Hard Here The Necons Are The Problem

Once again the SADISTIC NE-CON EVANGELICAL ACTIVISTS of the Florida's Secretary of State elections office have demonstrated just how corrupt and maniacal they are. The fact that an attempt to make 18,000 votes vanish in a close election ( won by 365 votes ) and a try to ignore calls for investigations and recounts, says one thing and only one thing . The fix was in on this one big time . Too bad the RNC lost the US House of Representatives . Now is the time to have a GOP fry in Florida I think " Jeb " would be very accommodating to a full scale DOJ investigation of the Florida elections the Florida Secretary of State's Office.