Nothing matters without verified voting

By Libby

Via Avedon comes a story about a touchscreen voting machine screwup so convoluted I can barely follow the particulars about what happened but the bottom line is the results of this vote are in no way guaranteed to reflect the will of the voters.

There was probably no nefarious attempt at sabotage here. It appears to be simple human error, but that's the point. The machines are operated by humans who are prone to make errors in programming and mistakes in judgment. And this was just a minor local election but the ramifications for November, when it will really matter, can't be overstated.

No system is perfect and someone can always find a way to commit fraud if they're determined but still, we need a tally that the public will have in confidence in as accurately reflecting their votes. I think paper ballots are our best bet, even if they use an optiscan system to tally. At least there's a hard copy to hand count in the event glitches arise.

I'm thinking now would be better than later to push our legislators into decertifying touchscreens altogether and mandating paper balloting for everyone. Having a publicly accepted vote is more important than a instant tally. Besides, the only people who really care about instant results are political junkies and the media.