Voting - the bedrock of democracy. How accurate? How costly?

[admin]

Voting - the bedrock of democracy. How accurate? How costly?« Thread Started on Sept 13, 2007, 6:30am » --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Voting - the bedrock of democracy. How accurate? How costly?Posted by Judith C. Cambria September 09, 2007 6:09PMread at source> http://blog.nj.com/njv_judith_cambria/2 ... c.htmlNext year, at the primary election for national candidates, the voter faces two possibilities when he or she casts their vote. You may review a printed copy of your vote made on a touch-screen electronic machine. Or you may fill out a paper ballot that would then be read by a scanning machine that tallies the vote. In each case the voter would personally verify the accuracy of their vote by looking at a paper copy of their selections of candidates. In neither case would they keep the paper ballot. It would be retained at the polling place, providing a paper trail in case a recount was required. This change is required because NJ's electronic touch-screen voting machines contain the potential for tampering. These machines provide no paper receipt of your vote that enables you, or any election official, to verify the accuracy of the recorded vote. The possibility of election fraud led NJ legislators to pass a law requiring all 10,000 NJ e-voting machines be retrofitted with printers that would provide a printed copy of each vote. The legislation requires the completion of the added printers by January 2008. The printers would would first be used in the February 5th primary election for national offices.However, a group of NJ voter rights activists has gone to court asking that e-voting machines be completely replaced with a system of paper ballots and new electronic scanning machines that would then read each individual ballot and tally the results.So, voters either will review a printed copy of the vote they made on a touch screen electronic voting machine or fill out a paper ballot that would be read by a scanning machine. In each case the voter would personally verify the accuracy of their vote and a hard copy would be created for recounts.