Burnt Orange Report

Call my cynical, but I have a real problem with those voting machines. The security concerns are serious. Having used one in the last election in Harris County, I was also concerned that the poll workers in my precinct were not in agreement on how the machine should operate, in order to understand operation, poll workers tried to require us voters to watch a video before voting.

But my biggest concern is that, as far as I can tell, there is no paper receipt or other system to prove that I or any other individual actually voted, or to show how I or any other individual voted.

In other words, for all I know my precinct could've hosed the voting machines and flushed 500 votes. Who would've been the wiser?

At least there's a paper trail with punch ballots. Under the current system, I have no way whatsoever of being to tell if I'm taking part in democracy or being laughed at on election day by dictators hiding behind a two-way mirror.

Call my cynical...

Well, UncleBob, OK, if you insist, you're cynical... but if you're cynical, a lot of us are cynical in exactly the same way. For all their flaws, paper ballots of one sort or another... punch cards, printouts for voters to examine and drop in ballot boxes, old-fashioned paper ballots... are about the only post-election guarantee that democracy was served. Otherwise, we're all just slinging bits and hoping they stick.

I've been an election judge and clerk in Harris County for a couple of years now. There is a paper trail on the number of people who voted in a precinct, the book you sign when you arrive at the polling location.

At the end of the day, the judge counts the number of votes on the eSlates and the number of signatures in the poll books. The judge then has to account for any differences.

The scenario you describe would be caught by the County Clerk's Election Division. What they do with the problem after that is something I don't know.

Additionally, the problem of completed ballots being "lost" or phantom voters voting would be the same under either the eSlate system or with a punch card system. A malicious precinct judge can attempt to falsify the results by falsifying the poll books under either system.

None of this is an argument against printing a hard copy receipt of the voted ballot. I've been thinking about it for the past couple of days and I think it might be harder than I previously thought, but I still think it's something worth pursuing.

The eslate is a machine, not a computer. It does not access the internet, only a private network, and therefore cannot be hacked into. They are fast and easy, and they save many volunteers hours by not having to physically count ballots. People complained about the punch-card sytem when it was first introducedd because it was differnent. I have faith in Orange County that they can follow simple instructions.

The eslate is a machine, not a computer. It does not access the internet, only a private network, and therefore cannot be hacked into. They are fast and easy, and they save many volunteers hours by not having to physically count ballots. People complained about the punch-card sytem when it was first introducedd because it was differnent. I have faith in Orange County that they can follow simple instructions.

Eslate is open to fraud as much as any other voting system without a paper trail. Inside hackers could be at work, and no one would ever be able to detect it. Punch card systems, with all their faults, at least do not allow for the possibility of one conspirator to change thousands or millions of votes with a software patch. If you insist on a receipt when you make a bank deposit, how insane is it to vote without a receipt? Like we're supposed to trust voting machine vendors who have millions of dollars at stake through the Help America Vote Act! BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!

I agree with "Vickie" regarding the insanity
of voting without a paper receipt. We should
demand, not ask, for a system that gives the
voter a paper trail. Is it no wonder that so
many people do not vote because they believe
their vote doesn't matter? I, for one, am convinced that unless we demand accountability
our votes probably do not matter since they
will most likely be fraudulent. Wake up Americans
your most precious right is being taken away as
we speak.