Florida Literally Scraps Touch-Screen Voting 177
Kaseijin writes "Florida Governor Charlie Crist is getting his wish. The New York Times reports the state will replace touch-screen voting machines with optical-scan models by July 1, 2008 — the most aggressive timetable of any jurisdiciton rethinking this approach to voting. The touch-screen machines most likely will be sold to other jurisdictions or stripped for parts."
Re:Parts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Parts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Sadly though, those $5000 machines will probably only sell for $200 tops online.
Re:Parts? (Score:3, Interesting)
"Proprietary firmware on closed system prevents hacker access"
Hm.. Were have I heard that one before?
Re:Paper? (Score:3, Interesting)
How many do you propose. In my county in November 2004, I voted for 54 different things. (President, Congress, Ohio House, Ohio Senate, State board of education, a bunch of judges, a bunch of county executive offices, several county tax authorizations and a lot of municipal tax authorizations.)
Admittedly, that was particularly severe, even for a presidential election.
I've been a pollworker for several years now, and while I have never worked a paper only election, I've got an idea of what is required as part of the counting process and it's heinous for a big election.
Re:Translation: (Score:1, Interesting)
Because people voted to elect people that decided to use that machine?
Truthfully, the greatest strength and weakness in a democracy is the very core of the system. People voting for what they want. If you give people the choice to choose their destiny, there is no guarantee that they will make the smart, informed choice. Sure, elections can be rigged, tampered with, and changed all to different degrees using a lot of methods both common and obscure. But even in the perfect world with perfect voting systems, people can elect bad leaders. Without talking about US elections, the top of my mind example is Adolf Hitler. He was elected, you know. And while the German people have since apologized profusely in different ways for that choice, it's still a choice that they can make in a free democratic system.
Also, there are standards for elections; there are Federal, State, and local laws that all come into play. And then of course there are party rules and regulations, like the one that is going to prohibit Floridian Democrats from having any voice in direct voting for the Democratic presidential nominee selection process at the DNC. IMHO, political parties damage the US voting system much more than poor standards for voting machines. If we can fix one of the most cited reasons for people deciding not to vote (as opposed to the people that are kept from voting or who vote without thinking or who may actually be in the seeming minority of people who study issues and vote) that would go a long way to giving the local supervisor of elections the power to say "eVote system's touch screen voting systems, while cheap and a good bid, will not be used." It really shouldn't take a Governor to say "Look, the system sucks, let's replace it."
In the interests of full disclosure: A few years ago (just after the first election in FL with those voting machines) I temped for a company that performed routine maintenance and calibration for those systems. Touch screen systems need to be calibrated prior to elections (or else maybe when you hit "Gore" you get "Buchanan" because some temp like me was lazy). Aside from that, these machines store votes horribly; the optical scan machines at least retain a copy of what my intent was; an eVote system can lose all recorded votes if you improperly store the electronic "ballot box" cartridge thing.
If the system printed an official ballot for you to review, and sign (or invalidate and correct), it could work. And by printed, I mean directly from the system; those cartridge ballot things are IMHO the worst part of the whole shebang.