Touch Screen Voting: Just Say No
California is suing Diebold, the nation’s largest manufacturer of touch-screen voting machines because the company lied about the machines’ security. According to the LA Times:
The system’s key vulnerability is that county election workers or others with access to the machines could type in a two-digit code and create a second set of results that would then be forwarded to the state as the county’s official tally.
I am curious what purpose that feature may have, beyond the obvious application of election fraud.
In August, 2003 Diebold CEO Walden O’Dell stated that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes for the president,” according to verifiedvoting.org.
I’ll take a hanging chad any day. I live in Chicago, of all places, and you know what we do? We use punch-cards, but we get to check them on the machine, which will report if it detects an undercount or an overcount. It just makes so much sense … in Chicago! Where we are known for election fraud … if we can figure out reliable voting, there’s hope yet, but it is not in the touch-screens!
Further fascinating news from today’s electoral-vote.com includes that West Virginia might have a faithless elector, South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb.
“I know that among some in my own party, what I’m discussing would be considered treasonous,” Robb said. “But I’m not going to cheerlead us down the primrose path when I know we’re being led in the wrong direction.”
Given the possibility of a tie in the electoral vote, it may well come to pass that the decision as to who will be our next President will fall on Richie Robb. Who needs Florida 2000 — this election is already fascinating!
-danny
