Colorado Sec.of State Calls for Fair Elections in .08
posted by
Wally
10:58 AM
The evidence is in. Electronic touch screen voting machines lose, fair elections win in Colorado. At least for now. Colorado's looming primary and presidential elections were thrown into turmoil Monday when many of the state's electronic voting machines were deemed unreliable and unsecure by Secretary of State Mike Coffman.
It is clear that Coffman's decision to "decertify" machines made by three of four manufacturers - Sequoia Voting System, Hart InterCivic and Election Systems and Software, or ES&S - will have far-reaching impact, Coffman and others said.
"The results today will have national repercussions across the country," Coffman said during a news conference, adding that other states are likely to take a look at new certification standards Colorado has put in place. We assume that the decision will be overturned in the next 30 days, based on how much money is involved. We all know that money trumps everything else. On the other hand, we hope there are significant repurcussions on a national level. Elections are too important to leave in the hands of computer programmers and hackers.
Having worked in the computer industry for over 30 years between us, Dookie and I know exactly how easy it would be for an unscrupulous (or well paid) programmer to slip a couple lines of code in the box that would totally change the outcome of an election, and how easy it would be to hack into one and change the results.
Our suggestion? Go low tech. Paper, pen, locked ballotbox, and human eyes to do the counting. Instead of paying $60,000 per machine to count the votes, just pay a group of poll workers to keep an eye on the polling places - making sure you have some from each party at each polling place to keep them from stuffing the ballot box. You have to pay the poll workers anyway, so that cost is a wash. This way you don't have to train them to fix the p.o.s. computers when they crash, and you don't have to worry about a ballot box "crashing" and losing all the votes in it - a definite concern with electronic machines. It eliminates a whole lot of confusion, since everyone knows how to use paper and pen, and it doesn't take a half hour to "boot up" a ballot box or a Bic. Last, and certainly not least, you have a paper trail, making recounts just as easy as the original count.
Sometimes Low Tech Rules
(Thanks to our good friend Nancy for sending us this story)
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