Congratulations to the republican governor and legislature of Florida.

It is fitting that it happen at ground zero of this 2000-2007 reign of corruption. Otherwise this would be the banner of the day:

“The recipe for perpetual ignorance is to be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.” Albert Hubbard

As it stands now, Florida has set a course for better elections. It signals a serious change of course, and offers hope for the future of elections in that state. Now it is up to election officials to continue the progress and insure proper clarity, storage, open counts, and open government during the entire election process.

Hopefully the primaries or the next election will prove the case.

This banner that came up when I logged on to Bradblog:

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." - Joseph Stalin

Stalin, being BC (Before Computers), used paper ballots.

But that is not the end of the matter, as he himself pointed out, because casting a vote is not dispositive of the matter. It is the counting of the votes that is dispositive and the real character of a system.

In the 2000 election Florida had paper ballots. That still led to Bush v Gore, and since then has led to Bush v The 2006 election People's Congress.

Hence we can say that Stalin with paper ballots and Florida with paper ballots is not the deciding essence, not the end of the matter.

In 2000 Florida also had, in addition to paper ballots, Katherine Harris as Secretary of State, and as republican campaign operative ... shades of Ken Blackwell in Ohio.

Don't get me wrong, this new Florda law is a change of course into a better direction. But election nirvana is still all about the counting not the casting.

Scanning paper ballot data into a system that has black box software we can't see, remote communication, and a partisan head of elections is still a Stalinist faith based system.

The S 559 bill in the US Senate, which comes from Florida Senator Nelson, outlaws the Ken Blackwell / Katherine Harris syndrome, outlaws communication devices attached to the system, outlaws black box source code, and makes the system lawful only if the souce code is available for public scrutiny.

Public eyes on the source code, no communication devices, and no partisan politics in the election, are the real high ground IMO.

It has been frustrating for me going on two years now. I have a solution to the voting system. I've tried to get attention for it. All I hear is 'go paper' or 'love the touch machines'... I have designed a system called Vote and Verify that allows a voter to 'verify' his/her vote got into the final data base-- where it counts. The method to get the vote there then becomes academic or less important since you can verify the results. After all, you don't really care what computer systems your bank uses as long as your receipt matches your balance, right?

I'm not a novice with over 20 years in software engineering and internet solutions. Please consider this as a serious attempt to offer a solution that will nail down this problem once and for all.

If you are really concerned about this, I have written the whole approach up on a web page complete with Flash presentation and all. I am not seeking to make money from it, but would like to see our voting system higher integrity than it has ever been using the same high technology to make sure high technology is accurate. Banks do it. See how I propose to do it.

It can be seen at VoteAndVerify.com In a nutshell, it allows voters to Verify online that their votes made it in the final official data base, and, gives them a tiny 3" receipt with encrypted numbers that will allow them to prove errors/tampering conclusively if it occurs. The receipt cannot be read without encryption software and codes, is small and this system offers 11 advantages over other systems... one I like is that a 'single voter can prove error or tampering'.... and can trace the problem to the specific machine that created the error, which could lead to catching the person that did the tampering.

This is an important idea whose implementation is obviously overdue (based on what we have seen in recent elections!).

I think that if you read this post and agree with it you should send it to your congress person and ask all your friend sto do the same.

CL