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Maryland Governor Wants Voting Paper Trail

Posted by Zonk on from the not-just-shots-in-the-dark dept.

smooth wombat writes "Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. said Wednesday that he has lost confidence in the state's ability to hold fair and secure elections this fall, and called for paper receipts for Maryland's electronic voting machines,and the delay of early-voting procedures approved by the Democratic-controlled legislature." From the article: "'In light of these recent national decertifications and the Maryland General Assembly's decision to override my vetoes ... I no longer have confidence in the State Board of Elections' ability to conduct fair and accurate elections in 2006,' said Ehrlich, a Republican, in his letter to Board of Elections Chairman Gilles W. Burger. Democrats criticized Ehrlich's apparent shift on the paper-receipt issue, noting that he vetoed a bill last year that would have studied the option. Advocates of reforming the state's voting system cheered Ehrlich's remarks, which he made a day before a Senate committee is to hold hearings on a bill that would require a paper trail. "

2 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Hey, you know what an easier way to do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Gee, paper receipts. I wonder how we could possibly implement that.

    Oh wait, here's an idea. Why don't we just use PAPER BALLOTS.

    If you really want your fancy touch screens and all to waste tax dollars on, fine, use them. Just have the voting machine print out a ballot. But we should never be in a situation where we're considering an electromagnetic smudge to have a "vote". You simply cannot have accountability with electronic votes. Electronic voting is a bad idea to begin with and the fact the voting machine companies are now themselves a political interest makes the idea uterly unworkable.

  2. Why is anyone against paper trails? by germanStefan · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The question is, why should anyone be against a voting system where people know that their vote was counted? If I press a buttong for candidate A and the paper trail shows candidate B, then one knows and can complain and perhaps revote? The only arguments I have heard of so far are that it would be to expensive. While it may cost a bit, I still think that the costs outweigh the problems when there is no paper trail.

    How many districts have we heard about, where their have been problems with electronig voting machines? Don't get me wrong, I use ATMs all the time, and trust it with my money, so I don't see why it should be so hard to come up with a secure and easy way to use voting machines. Diebold, the same company in trouble in several counties, is trusted for making great ATMs, but their voting machines are notoriously bad and their behaviour not to be trusted http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,60563,00 .html. Voting machines's source code should be open to election officials, so that they can take a look at them and make sure that they don't count backwards...