Reply #6: I don't think it's better than nothing

[jobycom]

I know no one agrees with me on this. Funny thing, way back in 2002 when were first started talking about BBV, I suggested paper printouts alongside e-voting, before I heard anyone else suggest it. So I was on that bandwagon before there was a bandwagon. But I'm not completely on it anymore. What happens when we have a close election and we count the paper ballots, and the totals don't match? What happens when we discover an equal number of errors in the paper ballots as in the BBV registers? What happens when we have to decide whether to trust incomplete paper ballots--there will be problems, no printer has ever failed to fail at some point--or possibly corrupt e-votes? We will in essence have two elections, with two possible outcomes. WHo decides then? You know it will go to the Supreme Court, and they will again choose our president.

We need one or the other. I still think e-voting can be safer and more accurate than paper with full transparency, but if people are just too suspicious, we should use paper only. Given that different systems have different failure rates, even allowing more than one type of system is violating the Equal Protect clause of the Constitution, as it was interpreted in Bush v Gore. We need one system for all precincts. And we need a system we can trust, not one that we must add additional uncertainty to to feel comfortable. The e-voting with a paper trail is just one more excuse for Repubs to throw the whole thing into a court to allow Republican judges to pick their candidates.

Just my thoughts. As I said, no one seems to agree with me. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.