Florida Governor Strikes Blow for Secure Elections!

$30 million to eliminate touch-screen ballots, replacing them with paper.

by Rod D. Martin
February 2, 2007

Kudos to Florida's Republican Governor Charlie Crist:  today's St. Petersburg Times reports that he will ask the Legislature for $30 million to eliminate touch-screen ballots throughout Florida, and replace them with machine-scanned paper ballots.

From the first day these computerized voting machines began being sold to election officials, I have been strongly opposed to them and said so loudly and long.  Anyone who thinks these things can't be hacked is a moron:  and the kind of people who could hack them can also cover their tracks, both because of the know-how needed and because of the extremely low technical knowledge of the average election official (and volunteer).

And of course, that factors out the possibility of official fraud.  Having grown up in Arkansas, I know plenty about officials fixing elections.  And just exactly how, without a proper paper trail, is anyone ever going to know?

So three cheers to Charlie Crist.  Machine-scanned paper ballo…