Reply #17: PLS everyone - notice PP's statement to the actual horribleness of Paper Optiscan

[truedelphi]

Ballots.

A paper ballot which ends up being read by a machine (You vote on it, hand it to an election official or self feed it into a machine) is not really a paper ballot.

The memory devices of the machine that reads the paper can be hacked, just as easily as any other machine.

And yes there are paper ballots to back up the vote - however, many "recounts", such as those in Riverside County, end up with the ballots being run through the same machinery. Thus,if a hacker has a code to say, throw every third vote from Kerry to Bush, there is no way to find that out.

Some counties allow for paper ballot recounts but they have been very expensive. In Marin County,
$ 161,000 is required to do a County wide recount of the 101,000 ballots there.

The Registrar of Voters there promises to make it better - don'tknow if she has or not.