09-13-2006, 04:17 PM
I agree with chas_m about the need for a paper trail. The votes need to be verifiable and auditable. Some of the current machines being pushed by makers don't provide this, and would not even meet the minimum requirements for these traits if used for business transactions. Unfortunately, in the rush to fix a system that had some problems, officials were sold on going for hi-tech machine solutions instead of actually focusing on the system. The machine is only part of a system, and can not substitute for the whole thing by itself. Going into what system problems need fixing starts getting into the other side of this forum though.
As for bowing our heads to technology, that is part of the problem here. Some of these new voting machines do not fit into a system that needs a verification and audit trail. It does not need to be a paper ballot, that is not what chas_m called for. For these machines there is too much of some tech and not enough of other tech to be appropriate for the system they are going to be used in. A simpler tech such as optical scan voting can sometimes be more appropriate because it fits into a system with auditing and verification. A black box that just show x voted for candidate A and y votes for B does not.
As for bowing our heads to technology, that is part of the problem here. Some of these new voting machines do not fit into a system that needs a verification and audit trail. It does not need to be a paper ballot, that is not what chas_m called for. For these machines there is too much of some tech and not enough of other tech to be appropriate for the system they are going to be used in. A simpler tech such as optical scan voting can sometimes be more appropriate because it fits into a system with auditing and verification. A black box that just show x voted for candidate A and y votes for B does not.