Botched Election Result Highlights Importance Of Paper Trail
from the democracy-is-a-big-one dept
The results of a recent school district election were overturned in Keene, N.H., when it was discovered that misprogrammed ballot-counting machines improperly threw out several votes. The problem stemmed from the fact that voters could vote for more than one candidate, but the machine was programmed to throw out any multiple votes. This highlights the importance of having a paper trail, either ballots or a printed out vote record, which e-Voting machines, like those from Diebold, don't have. Computers are generally great for producing quick and accurate results, but in the event of a glitch, humans should be able to do a recount. Unfortunately, the e-voting machine makers seems more interested in battling the states and ignoring criticism, than in learning from instances like these, and making their products better.