http://www.syracuse.com/news/poststandard/index.ssf?/base/opinion-4/1113640588152910.xml&coll=1
The
Post-Standard
A Vote for
Paper
Sunday,
April 17, 2005
For several
years, state legislators have been wooed, wined and dined by politically
connected lobbyists working for the nation's largest voting-machine
manufacturers.
Now
lawmakers are about to decide which type of voting machine would best suit New
York as they overhaul the state's election system. Millions of public dollars
are at stake. So is the integrity of the election process.
That's why
New Yorkers need voting machines that are secure, accurate, accessible,
verifiable and cost-effective. Fortunately, there is a technology available
that best meets those criteria: optical scanning of paper ballots.
Unfortunately, legislators aren't hearing much about it; voting-machine
companies and their lobbyists have been largely pushing electronic touch-screen
machines similar to ATMs. Those machines are more expensive and have to be
replaced more frequently than optical scanners.
Optical
scanning is tried and trusted. Nearly a third of American voters now cast paper
ballots read by optical scanners. Some counties in New York, including
Onondaga, use the technology for absentee ballots. Anyone who has ever taken a
standardized multiple-choice test in school would know how it works. Voters
fill in circles next to the names of the candidates they favor. A scanning
machine then records the votes directly off the ballots.
Under
federal law, New York must replace nearly 20,000 lever-action voting machines
in more than 15,570 election districts. The new machines must be accessible to
people with disabilities. They must make allowances for voters who cannot speak
or read English. And they must allow voters to ensure their votes are accurate
before they are cast.
Optical
scanning fits the bill on all counts. Voters certainly could review their
marked ballots before turning them in. And the ballots would always be
available to count by hand in case of challenges by candidates or unforeseen
foul-ups.
Ballot-marking
devices, too, would be available in each polling place to assist folks with
visual, hearing, mobility and language difficulties. The devices don't record
votes. They just help people mark ballots.
Touch-screen
machines, on the other hand, have proven unreliable and vulnerable to malicious
programmers. Unlike optical scanning, these machines record votes as voters
make their choices. Sometimes they go haywire.
Three years
ago, Miami-Dade County, Fla., spent $24.5 million on a touch-screen system. But
coding errors left hundreds of votes uncounted in recent elections. And
computer crashes wiped out almost every electronic record for the 2002
gubernatorial primary. Meanwhile, Election Day costs tripled. Now, Miami-Dade
and other counties across the nation are considering switching to simpler
scanner-readable paper ballots.
New York
lawmakers should learn from that costly mistake. There's a chance, though, that
they could just let each county decide on its own. (Voting-machine vendors are
already pushing their wares at the county level.) That could lead to a
patchwork of voting systems with potentially chaotic consequences, especially
in statewide elections.
For once,
legislators should reject the advances of lobbyists and make a decision that is
in the best interest of the state's citizens. They should choose optical
scanning as the single standard for voting machines in New York.
© 2005 The
Post-Standard. Used with permission.
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2005 syracuse.com. All Rights Reserved.
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