Newspaper laughs at those who want their votes to count

[madamesilverspurs]

From today's Greeley Tribune, Greeley, Colorado

A return to paper ballots wrong move



Tribune Opinion
January 31, 2008

Gov. Bill Ritter wants to have voters cast paper ballots in Colorado. Voter activist groups called the plan a major step toward trustworthy elections.

Ritter agreed, stating that paper ballots are fair, reliable and convenient.

"Paper ballots are a tried-and-true election method that has worked for decades," he said.

We know it's been a while -- almost eight years, in fact -- but does anyone remember Florida?

You know, when Al Gore was a presidential candidate and not the guy in the hip documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" talking about how the planet was going to heat up like a microwave oven.

Is there anyone who thought that election worked?

We're stunned that the governor, an official who seems to recognize the need for thinking about the future with his push for renewable energy, would embrace such a backwards technology.

County clerks said the new system would cost them millions to buy machines to count the ballots. This after spending buckets of bucks to buy electronic voting and tallying machines. Weld spent $1.3 million, for instance, with the help of some federal money. Now those counties may be expected to spend again because we're afraid of computers?

Secretary of State Mike Coffman announced on Dec. 17 that voting and tallying machines used in all but 12 counties are unfit for use because of concerns about accuracy. Weld's electronic machines are not among those machines Coffman decertified.

But it seems to us that paper ballots are even less accurate -- remember Florida? -- and cause headaches that our new-fangled computers are supposed to prevent. Machines, in fact, count paper ballots as well. Why are we so confident that those machines, many of them outdated, will suddenly be perfect, while computers will be wildly inaccurate?

Voters had the option of checking their electronic ballots, on paper, to check for accuracy during the last election. If there were any problems, they could be addressed almost instantly after the voter cast a ballot.

Voters' rights groups say this will help restore people's faith in the polls and bring them out in record numbers. We think it will do just the opposite.

We believe that the long lines at the polling centers that may come as a result of the new/old paper ballots will only drive away voters.

This is the electronic age. We buy our music, read the news and do most of our work on computers these days. We've even developed a new language to chat with each other and express our emotions.

We're not sure why our own governor seems to be afraid of computers these days, but this proposal to move to paper ballots leaves us ROTFL.




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[originalpckelly]

1. The Greeley Tribune can take those e-voting machines...

and stick 'em where the sun don't shine!

[originalpckelly]

4. Uh oh, it lookz like LOLGOVs have finally caught on:

[EFerrari]

2. Do you have a link? n/t

[Harkpark]

3. Ha

Just pay the millions to the homeless and the poor to count the votes and not some corp for the dumb machines.

The money will get pump into the economy in an instance.

[bluestateguy]

5. technology is not the answer to everything

it's the answer to many things, but not everything.

There is a lot to be said for the old fashioned paper and pencil and file cabinet.

[L. Coyote]

6. Preparing for a future where people don't count?

[Red Zelda]

7. Who owns that rag??

Shitstain Singleton?

[EFerrari]

8. Here's a link. Go post a comment if you have a sec:

http://www.greeleytrib.com/article/20080131/TRIBEDIT/821598828/-1/TRIBEDIT

[Winterblues]

9. The ONLY problem with vote counting in Florida was the Extreme Court stopped it

If they had been allowed to continue counting the votes there would have been no problem and Bush* would never have destroyed America's credibil;ity throughout the world..