Editorial Says it's 'Game Over' for DRE Voting Machines --- With or Without a So-Called 'Paper Trail'
By Brad Friedman on 12/26/2006, 3:30pm PT  

The Orlando Sentinel sends me a Christmas gift. While it's not exactly that I may have asked for, this being the charitable season I'll look the other way and be thankful for what I got. Particularly as the Sentinel (or the Slantinel as some in the Sunshine State aptly refer to it) has never been particularly democracy-friendly.

Here then, a few highlights from their weekend editorial entitled "Drop touch-screens - Our position: It's time to pull the plug on the failed experiment of electronic voting"...

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.
...
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.
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[P]aper-trail systems present other problems. Printers can jam and run out of paper. There is ample evidence that today's touch-screen machines are too complicated for volunteer poll workers to handle, and adding a printer would only make that worse.
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[S]aving money is the last reason to use these flawed touch-screen machines. If we are going to spend money on anything, it should be on elections.

Generations of soldiers have paid a much higher price in securing the right to vote from themselves and others, fighting and dying in places like Lexington and Concord to Kabul and Baghdad.

Let's remember that the hard-fought right to vote isn't worth much without the confidence the votes will count.

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Article Categories: Florida, Election Reform, FL-13