Paper Chase

In an unsurprising flip-flop, Diebold Election Systems, the big kahuna of electronic voting, just unveiled a prototype of a paper-based touchscreen voting machine.  For two years Diebold and its paid lobbyist have argued that we don’t need no stinking paper record.  We, the people, should trust, but not verify a corporate profiteer whose CEO, Walden O’Dell, was committed “to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president."

   

Proponents of a voter-verified paper trail were dismissed as Luddites and/or conspiracy theorists.  (Disclosure: I was a communications consultant for the Election Verification Project, which includes renowned “Luddites” like Stanford University computer science professor Dave Dill.)  Still, some election officials pulled the plug on buying e-voting machines because they, too, were concerned about the systems’ accuracy and reliability.

Diebold’s about-face was expected because after gobbling up more than $100 million in taxpayer money in Georgia and Maryland it wants to continue feeding at the public trough as states ban e-ballots.  So to maintain access to election officials who can improve its bottom line, Diebold is sponsoring a coffee break today at the winter meeting of the National Association of Secretaries of State.

In the meantime, Rep. Rush Holt last week dropped a voter-verified paper trail bill, which would require states to kick paperless ballots to the curb just as Secretary of State Dean Heller did in Nevada, where I observed voting in the primary election.

   

If you don’t want to gamble on whether your vote is counted accurately or gets lost, then contact your congressperson and ask him or her to support H.R. 550 to ensure that what happened in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Las Vegas.