Secret software, lack of paper trail a recipe for trouble

[davidinalameda]

http://www.wvgazette.com/section/Columns/200312211

West Virginia has been a crucial state in presidential elections. This state set John Kennedy on the path to the presidency, and we all know that George W. Bush would not be president without West Virginia. What part will the Mountain State play in 2004?

In response to “Florida 2000,” Congress passed the Help America Vote Act and appropriated almost $4 billion so states could acquire voting equipment to ensure an accessible, honest, reliable vote in 2004 and thereafter. For the most part, states are going for Direct Recording Electronic voting machines, also known as touch-screen computerized voting machines.

The technology has pizazz. It is certainly no surprise that salespeople push DREs, since they cost about 10 times as much as the next most expensive machine, the optical scanner (although this doesn’t include the cost of ballots for the latter).