By Brad Friedman on 9/18/2006, 2:12pm PT  

He's taking mail on the question right now to read on the air during Blitzer's Situation Room.

You can send him email here. "Should electronic voting machines be outlawed?"

UPDATE: Here's the transcript of today's show. The snippet from that transcript, including the questions Cafferty ended up reading on the air, is posted below...

BLITZER: Let's go up to New York once again and Jack Cafferty --- Jack.

JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Wolf.

Colorado's November election, the midterms is "headed for a train wreck." So says a lawyer who wants to have computer voting banned from the upcoming midterm elections. He is representing the plaintiffs in a lawsuit to stop the use of electronic voting machines.

According to a deposition in that case, a state employee says he certified some voting computers in about 15 minutes even though he has no training in computer science. That would be like me trying to certify them.

Further, the plaintiffs say an expert would need no more than two minutes to reprogram the machines and distort the vote count. That's comforting.

The deputy attorney general says Colorado is safe from any tampering because the state requires a printout of each computer ballot. And this is all not just about Colorado either.

Nationwide, more than 80 percent of voters will use electronic voting machines in November. One third of all precincts are using this technology for the very first time this year.

And we all know what happened down in Maryland a few weeks ago. They used these things for the first time. It was a nightmare.

The question is this: Should electronic voting machines be outlawed?

E-mail your thoughts to caffertyfile@cnn.com or go to cnn.com/caffertyfile --- Wolf.

BLITZER: Good question, Jack. Thank you.

Jack Cafferty in New York.

...

BLITZER: Let's check back with Jack Cafferty for "The Cafferty File" --- Jack.

CAFFERTY: Wolf, the question this hour: Is should electronic voting machines be outlawed?

There are serious questions about how reliable they are and how tamper-proof they may or may not be.

Mark in Colleyville, Texas, writes: "I'm a software engineer with many years of experience on many different computing and controller platforms. E-voting, as we have it implemented now, should be banned. No self-respecting software engineer implements any kind of software without hard-copy/paper audits. It blows me away anyone would allow implementation of any kind of automation without audits."

Jeannette in Florida: "Jack, everyone is wondering if democracy is at risk because of electronic voting machines. How do we know democracy wasn't already lost in 2000 and 2004? We will never know with certainty that those elections weren't tampered with. Back to paper ballots and hand counting. If it takes longer, so be it. At least we will know our votes counted."

Bobby in California: "Should electronic voting machines be outlawed? No. But they should give out paper receipts as proof of the voter's input."

Jim in Texas: "Jack, this is how to fix it. The electronic vote would tally and then kick out a printed receipt. If Wal-Mart can do this with every sale, how difficult can it be? The voter would then verify their votes were counted and correct. The voter would then insert the printed ballot in a software-free reader, like IBM used in the '50s, to tally the votes. If the tallies didn't balance at the end of the day, there's something rotten in Denmark."

And Sam in Oceanside, California: "How come we can get a paper record for our financial transactions, but we can't get a simple paper trail receipt for the most important right we have as citizens: the right to vote? I will tell you why. The people in power don't want us to."

If you didn't see your e-mail here, you can go to CNN.com/CaffertyFile, and read some more of these online --- Wolf.

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