Florida plans to dump touch-screen voting

[Terri]

By UPI Staff
United Press International
February 2, 2007

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (UPI) -- Florida, scene of several high profile voting machine glitches, will return to paper ballots if the legislature approves, Gov. Charlie Crist said Thursday.

The ballots would be counted by electronic scanning, The New York Times reported.

Experts say the switch in such a large state could mean the end of paperless touch-screen machines. Critics say the machines -- which resemble bank cash machines -- can be hacked, and provide no way to check that vote counts match the electorate's actual choices.

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[steveh]

Chad...we want Chad.

You can't keep a good Chad down. Or up. Or sideways.

I'll bet Al Gore is looking to sue. All these hanging chads and paper ballots are from deforestation and are another cause for global warming.

Stupid is as stupid does....

[jack virtus]

lets face it, if Al Boor had won the election in 2002 there wouldn't have been a problem with the counting of votes. the problems occured in counties contolled by democrats, more than likely they hired union vote counters that were too stupid to rig the election their way. why we encourage everyone to vote is a mystery to me. i truely believe that most people are to dumb or ill informed to vote. bring back literacy tests and the poll tax!

[Terri]

You don't have to have chads.

We've marked ballots with a special pencil here for years. Then they are counted by machine. In the last election we had a choice of the old method or touchscreens. The lines were a lot longer for the old method.

[autocad]

This is good news. I bet Diebold ( maker of the touch machines) will issue a news statement.

I like Charlie Crist so far, he seems to listening to the people of Florida.

We use a pen to mark the choice, then it goes into an optical scanner. Simple and it works.

[RW]

Whatever happened to the good old voting machines that seemed incorruptible? Had to have 2 poll watchers unlock them and several to tally the count then two more to verify the count.

I used paper ballots in the last election and lemme tell ya, they were confusing and poorly done. First time I had ever seen one. Anyone with arthritis or carpel tunnel syndrome acting up that day would made a chad or two!

Yeah, Charlie Crist is a real mover and shaker. He hit the ground running, making good on his campaign promises right away. I am very well pleased.

[Charie]

We used an electronic touch voting machine for the first time in our little town. You had the option of the machine or the old paper ballot marked with pencil. I used the machine and found it to be simple and there was a roll of paper on the side such as that on a cash register that printed out your vote so you could read it and then it rolled up so blank paper showed again. I stood right there until it rolled up because it was a little slow.

Guess I don't understand what would be so complicated about using this form of voting.

Our lines were longer for the paper ballots but most people seemed to be leery of the machines because they were unfamiliar with them.

[candles]

Here in my little part of SE MI, we still use the paper ballot. No hanging chads here black markers.
Some parts of MI, I understand they use other methods.

[Ralph Cringely]

The folks at Fix-A-Vote are sad today.

[Lady Navy Vet]

I just don't get it? Here in SC we had all electronic, touch screen voting, outside of absentee voting. Outside of a few minor glitches(all were corrected, with no votes lost) there were no problems here. Why don't they look at another companys machines instead of ditching touch screen voting altogether? Or are they looking for a system they can corrupt easier????
The voting machines here in SC can even be carried outside the polling station to the disabled in their cars, to make it easier for them to vote. Can the optical scanner systems(not just the paper ballots) do the same. I admit that I have a general distrust of paper balloting systems. It just seems to easy to corrupt to me.
Lady Navy Vet