In light of all the discussion about whether or not we should gut or delay the Voter Confidence Act – the almost unanimously agreed upon election reform bill that would, among other democracy-loving mandates, require Tennesseans to vote on paper – we need to remember why we needed election reform in the state in the first place.
Paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machines, also knownn as DREs, suck and 93 out of 95 counties in Tennessee currently use them.
Paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machines are not secure and unreliable.
They flip votes (the machines used in the West Virginia counties where flipping occurred are the same ones used in Davidson County). And whether the vote flipping problems are caused by “buggy” software created by inept programmers or malicious source code doesn’t matter. And besides, we wouldn’t be able to discern the reason because…
The software used in the machines is hidden from us. There is no public scrutiny of the code that counts the votes, which violates the “vote in private, count in public” axiom.
Paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machines do not allow for any type of meaningful recount. (just ask Tim Barnes).
Paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machines totals can be manipulated in the source code, by introducing virus in one of the un-secure data ports, or by good ol’ fashioned Kentucky-style vote-fixin’.
When a paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machine crashes or malfunctions, as computers are prone to do, votes can be irretrievably lost.
When you vote on paperless unverifiable touch-screen voting machines there is no guarantee that your vote will be counted, let alone counted as cast.
As the reasons for delaying the implementation of the Voter Confidence Act pile up, we must keep in mind our ultimate goal – free, fair, and trustworthy elections.
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