Editorial: Our voting machines

Secretary of state must provide way to create a paper trail in '04

February 22, 2004

Florida Secretary of State Glenda Hood is boasting that new touch-screen voting machines mean "Florida is no longer haunted by those ghosts of 2000" (see her letter to the editor on this page). Perhaps she should re-read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol to remember that Floridians would do well to fear the ghost of the election to come.

In the 2000 presidential election, Palm Beach County's infamous "butterfly ballots" wreaked havoc for an official recount. Similar problems in other counties created recount problems ? which together led some to allege that the Republicans stole the state's electoral vote from Al Gore and gave it to George Bush.

Now there's real concern that the whole ugly recount business could happen again in 2004.

Problems with the new touch-screen voting machines already have surfaced. During a recent special election in Broward County, 12 votes couldn't be accounted for in a contest decided by less than half a dozen. The computerized machines could provide no documentation to tell about the votes, a problem that could affect the outcome in November, when Florida again will be a pivotal state.

Floridians are being asked to trust the computers and our supervisors of elections. Most of us are ready to trust the supervisors, but the computers are another story. There have been too many tales of hackers, bugs in programs, even statements raising suspicions that the machines might be programmed to produce a given result. Can voters trust these election machines? How will they know that the result produced is a true count if there is no paper trail? We can apply to Florida's voting machines the words of President Ronald Reagan as he confronted the Soviet Union: "Trust but verify."

Secretary Hood says there is not time to have a computer producing a printed record approved for this year's election. So, what are voters to do? The nation's political parties and many of those holding or seeking office are seemingly dedicated to "take no prisoners," which means anything goes ? win at any cost, by any means. Why, then, should voters be asked to make a leap of faith, to accept blindly whatever the computers and recount managers say?

A printed record is imperative. Floridians have to be confident that their vote went to the person or party they ed.

Hood really must find a way to fix the state's suspect election machinery. Clever turns of phrase evoking banished ghosts aren't going to fill the bill when there remains so much that bedevils a skeptical electorate.