|
According to current best thinking, there’s one sure way to make your vote count.
After the contentious U.S. election of 2000, some political consultants wrote a plea to computer professionals to design more reliable ways to record votes. Most recommended touch
screens that print permanent, marked ballots.
California's Santa Clara County on Feb. 25 became the first county in the nation to order voter touch screens that provide printouts. Only a portion of the county's polling booths will
be equipped for hard copy when the new system is first used by voters this November. But the intent is to equip all voting equipment with such a paper record soon.
The system's vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, agreed to add print capabilities without raising the cost of the county's purchase order.
The paper trail was urged by computer scientist David Dill and hundreds of petition-signers. Without printed ballots, they argued, computer-only processes allow tampering to go
undetected. Good work, people -- keep 'em honest. -- J.D. Kinney
http://www.devkinney.com Back to home page
|
