March 28, 2007

Bring back the paper ballot

If Debra Bowen's new regs end up killing electronic voting in California, would that be such a bad thing? It might be if the decisions comes too late to re-retool before the Feb. 5 2008 presidential primary. But in the long term, probably not.

There's nothing wrong with voting on paper. It worked for a couple of hundred years. Yes, some ballot boxes were stuffed. But for the most part elections were clean and people trusted the results. The problem with touchscreen voting has never really been the technology. They are probably safe, too. It's just that it is too easy to doubt something you can't see or hold. The losers in a close race (and even some races that are not so close) will always suspect that something funny happened inside that black box.

In fact, even if the machines could meet Bowen's new standard, a lot of people wouldn't trust them.

I am a tech hound, a gadget lover. But it's not worth all this trouble just to save a few hours counting votes a once or twice a year.

Posted by dweintraub on March 28, 2007 9:45 AM