EDITOR: I had an opportunity this week to cast my absentee
ballot using the
“new” computerized voting machine. For a first-time user, I
found the system to be relatively easy to understand and simple to
use.
EDITOR:
I had an opportunity this week to cast my absentee ballot using the “new” computerized voting machine. For a first-time user, I found the system to be relatively easy to understand and simple to use.
I did, however, have concerns about the ability of the system to accurately record or validate my vote. When the voting process is complete, the voting machine (computer) simply tells the voter that your vote has been processed. There is no confirmation number, receipt or anything else offered to the voter to show that a vote has been cast or even recorded. I left the polling place wondering whatever happened to my vote. Once finished, the voter simply walks out of the polling place.
At least the old “hanging chad” ballots (which I never had a problem with but the experts said confused to old folks and minorities such as myself), the voter got a numbered receipt that was torn from the ballot. This stub at least validated that a vote had been cast and could be used as an audit trail to investigate any incidents of fraud.
After I had “voted,” the representative at the Registrar’s Office tried to assure me that my vote would be counted stating, “Trust us.” I have always considered the right to vote as a sacred one and I would rather not devote blind “trust” to such an automated system. As President Ronald Reagan once told the failing communist Mikhail Gorbachev, “Trust But Verify.” In these days of computer viruses, worms and hackers, any computer system is vulnerable to attack and subject to manipulation and fraud.
The system must have some sort of verification process to assure the voter that their vote has been accurately cast and recorded. The computerized voting system does not provide any confidence to the voter. The county Registrar of Voters has an absolute obligation to ensure that the public has confidence in the voting system. Anything less makes voting in this county very unreliable and extremely untrustworthy.
Stan Faulwetter,
Morgan Hill
