Between 4 million and 6 million Americans either failed to cast votes or had their votes invalidated in last year's presidential election because of faulty equipment, mismarked ballots, polling place failures and foul-ups with registration or absentee voting, a study by two leading universities reported yesterday. [...] But while the university recommendations received a generally warm reception, several officials and organizations expressed reservations about the report's emphasis on technology and its promotion of a federal role in a process that traditionally has been controlled by state and local governments. [...] "I hope people aren't convinced that simply plugging in new voting systems around the country is going to solve our problems," said Kansas Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh, the newly elected NASS president.
You know, I can understand the reservations about technology. After all, you switch to some electronic version, the electricity fails at a polling place, and you're screwed for that entire ward. However, voter education or no, simply plugging in new voting systems would, in fact, appear to solve a great many of the problems of last year's elections.
I don't get the reservations about the federal role, though. I mean, the states flatly don't have the money to do a major upgrade all at once. (Even if they did, the certified voting technology vendors don't have the capacity to deal with all the localities at once, but that's another issue.) Even if they did ... well, I suppose they see any change as a loss of power. The fact that the country at large would probably be better served by uniform standards for federal election is, of course, beside the point.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
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12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!