Voting machines point forward

Record Courier Staff Reports
July 7, 2004
By the time we get to cast our first ballot of the Primary Election, the punch ballot we've used for so long will be illegal.

On Sept. 1, those ballots will no longer be used in Nevada. That's kind of scary when you think that the new voting system is not yet functional.

Here we are less than 60 days from early voting and the people who are supposed to show us how to cast our ballots are just learning the process themselves.

While Clerk-Treasurer Barbara Reed is putting on a brave face, there has to be some trepidation to implementing a voting system that has yet to be tested in the heat of battle.

We've been voting the same way for decades, and there are those among us who do not deal with change well. This new fangled equipment will force us to deal with technology in a way we've never had to.

And to add fuel to the fire, the system of printing a paper receipt to keep track of the voting is still not in place. The receipt is required for the new system to be legal. The potential exists that we will have an election and no legal way to cast a ballot.

Fortunately, we tend to be pretty bright when it comes to new technology, and hopefully this will serve us in one of our most important functions as citizens of the most powerful nation in the world, to vote.

Like Cortez, who burned his ships when he arrived in the New World, we voters are faced with only one direction in this Brave New World of electronic voting - forward.