Why voters dislike machines

Editorial     The Wilmington Star News    19 July 2005 
North Carolinians can regain some trust in the accuracy of election returns if the General Assembly requires voting machines to make printed records and let voters check them before they leave the booth.

The state Senate could pass such a bill this week. Surely it will, and surely the House will quickly follow suit.

Tar Heels voted for a batch of politicians in November, but we still don?t have a state school superintendent, because 4,438 votes went into a Carteret County voting machine and disappeared. That threw two tight races into confusion.

The best way to avoid such embarrassing and potentially serious foulups ? we?re managing to survive without an official school superintendent ? is to use machines that leave a ?paper trail.? That way, if a computer brain gets demented, human election officials can still count the votes.

The only obstacle to passing such a commonsense bill would seem to be the price ? $20 million in state funds, on top of $53 million from the feds.

But the $20 million will have to be found.

North Carolina isn?t Florida, thank the Lord, and doesn?t want to start acting like it.