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California Bans Paperless Voting -- For 2006

bizpile writes "Gov. Schwarzenegger signed a law requiring that all electronic voting machines produce paper records of every ballot cast. Under the bill, signed Monday, voters will not be able to touch or keep the records. Instead, election officials will put them in locked boxes if a recount is needed. Legislators in nearly two dozen states have introduced similar bills and New Hampshire, Illinois and Oregon already have laws requiring paper backups. However, those states have few, if any, touch-screen voting terminals. The law goes into effect in 2006. Now if they could just figure what to do this election."

6 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. this shouldnt be happening in california... by applegoddess · · Score: 4, Insightful

    it should be happening in places like florida and other important/swing states, and all places that use voting machines that are as vulnerable as Diebold's pieces of junk...and this election is so much more important than the 2006 election in california ):

  2. Give the man his due. by Dr.+Bent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    OK I realize that this may be a bit offtopic, but I've got Karma to burn, so here goes:

    Arnold is doing a good job as Governor.

    Uh oh...I've gone and done it now. I've thrown all my credibility out the window. I must be an idiot for thinking that an actor could be a good governor. I must be stupid for thinking that anyone but a professional politican could actually hold office, not to mention the top executive office of the most powerful state in the union.

    To those politically ill-informed among you, I know this may come as a shock. I know that you enjoy following every reference to the Governor with some half-wit, cliche joke about how he's going to 'terminate' something, but guess what? He's actually doing his job well. Balancing the budget, reforming the workman's comp program, and lots of other little-published but much needed reforms (such as this one) are all what California desperately needs.

    The framers didn't want America to be run by professional policicans. They wanted America to be run by it's people. Average citizens to step for a few years to perform a civic duty, and then go back to the private sector to get on with thier lives. That's what Arnold is doing. He's cleaning up other people's messes because it needs to get done. I'm sure he got lots of other motivations that are not nearly as noble, of course, but the fact remains that he's fixing a problem that needs to be fixed, and you have to give him credit for that.

  3. Illinois... by Slime-dogg · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It doesn't really matter what policy Illinois has. It's the home of the democratic machine. It's where Obama comes from. Even if the state had a real republican vote, enough dead people would vote democrat to change that result.

    It's strange, though. About 85% of the land area of Illinois contains primarily republicans, but it's really just the vote of Chicago that matters.

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  4. Thermal printers by k4_pacific · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Are they using thermal printers or dot matrix? I've noticed that thermally printed receipts tend to fade after a few weeks.

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    1. Re:Thermal printers by MagicM · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I think dot matrix might cause a privacy issue. It would be easy enough to tell by the sound which candidate the vote is for.

  5. Re:Correction on Oregon by JimMarch(equalccw) · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes...BUT there's still two problems:

    1) If somebody doesn't vote for any candidate in a given race, it's easy for somebody at elections HQ to fill in a dot and "choose for them". This was documented in Napa County Calif in the last election via forensic ink analysis in at least 38 cases for a close local race.

    2) There's no independent election monitors making sure people aren't pressured at home or work or whatever to "vote properly" as happened in San Francisco when a city work manager herded his dozen or so employees through the absentee process, looking over their shoulder as they filled out the ballot. Polling places prevent this crap.