Strategic Voting Machines Question

[ellisonz]

To those who are more informed,

Q: I attended the Democracy for Oregon Summit/DFA Training Academy at PSU this weekend in Portland, OR. I listened to and sat in on a Q/A session with leading members of the Oregon Voter Rights Coalition. I asked one basic question for background on current litigation and listened. I left with the impression that many high schools use optical scan machines to give exams etc. I also understand the complexity of printing ballots for individual districts, but given the short amount of time for the November cycle we either don't have or won't have much time to affect the distribution of voting and tabulation resources that aren't of state-corporate origin. Can we develop a strategic reserve of basic optical scan machines to at the very least perform accurate exit polling for a decent section of the top of the ballot? Are we fully considering how the short-term response for 2006 leads into 2008? What happens if we have a serious doubts of voting machine reliability in certain districts? Would this allow us to hold recounts if there is systemic failure in the voting system in the area in doubt?

Surely this isn't possible nationally, but things like this have happened before in American history: see the election of 1876: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rutherford_B._Hayes#Election_of_1876

Thank's for considering my question,

-Z

P.S. I had a wonderful time...We had alot of great people working real hard for Oregon