"Current Commissioners put
our votes at risk"


November is coming soon.

Around here people like to vote. They like to talk about candidates and qualifications and they get out and knock on doors. While they may disagree about who to vote for, there is no disagreement on the value of the vote. The vote has meaning to each and every person in our town, no matter what their political philosophy.

Then one day, the "Current County Commissioners" announced that a new Federal law, the Help America Vote Act, said that they had to get new voting machines because of the problems in Florida in the 2000 election. The public was told that this had to be done in a big hurry, or big bucks were going to be lost.

The commissioners had no interest in the participation of citizens in any group studying which voting machines to choose. They put together a “work- study” group, consisting of only county employees, and used their recommendations as the basis of their decision-making. Soon they announced their decision to purchase the externally paperless Danaher electronic voting machines rather than the voter-marked paper ballot/ optical scan system considered by most computer experts across the country as the most accurate and secure system.

"Information" sessions for the public were held that limited the demonstration machines to those that the commissioners deemed appropriate. In one "Information" session, a citizen was escorted out of the courthouse by the cops for handing out literature on a machine that provided vote verification! The "Current Commissioners" preferred the "simple" touch screen type, even though no individual vote could be verified, and it was possible that such machines could be hacked into by high school kids, never mind sophisticated experts with a political agenda. There was even evidence that the touch screens wore out faster and required more maintenance than the scanning type. Bottom line: the voter-marked paper ballot/ optical scan system is the most cost-effective as well as being the best for recounts and audits because you have the voter-marked paper ballot to check against the electronic count.

Nevertheless, the touch screen voting machines were purchased and first used in the November '04 election. The County declared that they worked flawlessly. It is useful to note that the Congressional race was won by a margin of victory of less than 1%, yet there was no call for a recount as it is impossible to do a meaningful recount or audit on these paperless Danaher machines. Every time you push the button, the same number comes out of the electronic machine. There is just no way to verify the accuracy of the vote count. Meanwhile, in Florida, New Mexico and other places, events occurred that showed that the use of these machines was a recipe for disaster. In California, a computer scientist found that he could hack into the touch screen system in minutes and change the numbers as easily as pressing a few keys. Actually, a similar study had been done at Johns Hopkins before the "Current Commissioners" installed the touch screen system, with the same results. People all over the county wrote to the newspapers pointing out the problems with the system and the peril to the sanctity of the individual vote. The "Current Commissioners" ignored them, ignored all the research, ignored the advice of leadership in other states and citizens here and insisted there was no need for change. Following the Spring primary, the “Current Commissioners” issued another statement saying that the election had occurred “without incident,” despite newspaper reports of problems with the write-in function on the Danaher machines.

If ever, in history, there was a better reason to turn the "Current Commissioners" out of office, it is difficult to know what it could be. Whether it was ignorance or arrogance or reluctance to admit that a mistake had been made, the commissioners who stuck us with those touch screen voting machines have got to go. We must be able to trust our commissioners with our vote. There is nothing more important. November is coming.