Tennessee May Change Voting Machines

[DeSwiss]

Tennessee may change voting machines
93 of 95 counties can't generate paper trail that bill would require

The Tennessean
By THEO EMERY • Staff Writer • February 21, 2008

Johnny Lee keeps a watchful eye over Pickett County's 10 voting machines, called optical scanners, that the elections administrator keeps in a corner of his Byrdstown office, ready for election day in November. The rural county along the Kentucky border is one of only two in Tennessee in which voters cast ballots using technology that leaves a verifiable paper record.

Counties throughout the state could be required to follow Pickett's example if lawmakers approve legislation called the Tennessee Voter Confidence Act that is pending in the General Assembly. Nearly everywhere else in Tennessee, voters made their choices in 2006 on touch-screen machines that don't create an individual paper record. If the legislation is approved, all 95 counties would be required to adopt technology like that used in Pickett and Hamilton counties.

How soon that conversion should happen, though, is a source of debate. Some want a swift switch by this fall's presidential election if the act passes, while state and county officials warn that a rush to embrace the technology could create havoc statewide. Funding is a major issue. It would cost about $25 million for every county to adopt optical scanners. The state still has about $30 million in federal election money, but cannot use it to replace brand-new voting machines without permission from the federal government.

Dick Williams, chairman of the Tennessee chapter of the government watchdog group Common Cause, said other states had successfully switched to optical scanners in a short time, and that Tennessee should, too. But time is running out, he said. "We feel that we're on the verge of adopting a much better system, and we would strongly want it available for next November," Williams said.

Many may not be ready
Brook Thompson, the state's election coordinator, has warned lawmakers that rushing a conversion could create a crisis if counties and voters are not ready. "If we rush to put in a new system and the voters aren't completely sure what they're supposed to be doing, if the election officials aren't sure what they're supposed to be doing, we're more likely to create an election crisis," he said.

Lee said Pickett County officials are happy they de cided to go with scanners 10 years ago. He ex pressed skepticism that Ten nessee could make a state wide conversion by November. "It'd be hard on these counties to change in an election year," he said. "That's why I think they need to put it off until 2010 and maybe get set up after this election year is over with."

At the heart of the debate are the ability of voters to check ballots and ensure that their votes are recorded accurately, and the ability of election officials to verify results. Tennessee is one of 12 states that don't keep a statewide paper audit trail of votes.

http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080221/NEWS0201/802210402">More

- "It'd be hard on these counties to change?" Just print a bunch of paper ballots, and we'll take it from there....
========================================================================
DeSwiss

[southerncrone]

1. Ain't this just amazing.

My mother in Chattanooga told me about this about 2 weeks ago. Apparently there was an article in their newspaper or on their news about it. Hamilton County (Chattanooga) is the OTHER county w/a paper trail.

Sadly, Pickett County is the smallest county in TN by population. Talk about tragic irony.

That 2000 election steal sure paid off in spades for the neocons. Their buddies, the electronic voting machine manufacturers, made a killing selling these monstrosities & they can rig/steal elections into perpetua, because the FEDERAL govt. must approve their quick replacement. Whadda ya think the odds of THAT will be?

Wow! What a tremendous coup that was! :sarcasm:

Hey, DeSwiss!:hi:

[DeSwiss]

2. Hey Southerncrone... :-)

All of this only serves to prove once again, that most politicians don't have a CLUE about computers and technology. When they rushed to spend the money Congress appropriated for voting machine upgrades, as with most other cases they just want to know how they can benefit. Meanwhile Diebold and ESS had their lobbyists out in full-force peddling their pieces of crap. Opitcal scanners are the way to go.

From further in the Tennessean piece.....

"In the backdrop is the contested 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W. Bush. In that election's aftermath, Congress set aside $3 billion to help states purchase new and more reliable voting machines. But as election officials from coast to coast rushed to buy and install new voting equipment, fierce public debate quickly evolved over which technology was best. Many locations, including most of Tennessee, adopted touch-screen machines, in which voters indicate their choice on a computer screen. These machines leave no paper record of individual votes, and are widely seen as more problem-prone and vulnerable to tampering. The other major option was optical-scan machines, in which voters fill in a paper ballot, then feed it into a machine that records the vote. With those machines, the original ballot is kept and can be easily checked."

[southerncrone]

3. I agree about thier technological ignorance. As you've posted here before

idiotic moves, like the stolen laptops in Davidson Co. with voter's information stored on them. It simply begs WTF! There have been other similar events of late in other sectors of the govt. & industry.

The fact that SENSITIVE PERSONAL INFORMATION is routinely loaded onto PORTABLE devices, such as laptops, discs & flash drives, is simply insane. Surely their IT guys or accountants would institute a policy prohibiting this for SECURITY reasons! It is BASIC common sense.

One can't help but pull out the tin foil hat :tinfoilhat: & wonder if this could possibly be deliberate to cause the populous undue stress & grief by basically PROMOTING identity theft! :grr: