CA: Many counties returning to paper ballots

[nicknameless]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/14415363.htm

Many counties returning to paper ballots

By Chris Metinko
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

One of the first counties in the state to embrace electronic voting is headed back to paper -- and it's not the only one.

Alameda County residents going to the polls June 6 will be asked for the first time in five years to fill in ovals on paper ballots rather than casting their votes on costly touch-screen machines.

"It's a little bit of back to the future," joked Elaine Ginnold, the county's acting registrar of voters.

The decision to go back to paper stems from changes in state law that toughen requirements for touch-screen machines and render the county's equipment inadequate.

Merced and Plumas counties also will switch back to paper ballots. And earlier this week Los Angeles officials agreed to upgrade their current optical scan system that counts paper ballots instead of spending more than $100 million to buy a touch-screen system.

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The county purchased its now-outdated Diebold electronic voting system for $12 million in 2001. However, the equipment had glitches. Diebold eventually agreed in 2004 to pay the state and Alameda County $2.6 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that it made false claims when it sold its equipment to the county.

The settlement came after local and state officials found that Diebold had installed uncertified software in the county's touch-screen machines and that its system was vulnerable to computer hackers. County elections officials also found the system's vote-tabulating program gave several thousand absentee votes to the wrong candidate during the October 2003 gubernatorial recall election.

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[aquart]

1. After wasting millions on the Republican vote-scam machines.

One more deliberate fraud.

[MADem]

2. Ripped off for twelve million bucks

What use that money could have been put to.....

[electropop]

3. Well, I'm glad they're seeing the light...

Let's see, touchscreens are:

(1) Hugely expensive: thousands of dollars for a station versus $0.69 for a pen.
(2) Produced by proven fraudsters.
(3) Hackable.
(4) Slow to produce a count.
(5) Incredibly unreliable: massive failure rates.

And we're spending money on them...why?