From: "Rich Gauszka" 


"Gary Britt"  wrote in message
news:45492c20$1{at}w3.nls.net...
 > Why didn't they beta test these things with a bunch of old retirement
> home Jewish ladies from Dade county.  You know the ones that couldn't
> punch a chad or follow ------------------->  to the proper hole.
>
> Gary

I like George Will's piece on it ( we use paper ballots in Detroit )

http://www.suntimes.com/news/will/114963,CST-EDT-geo29.articleprint

The hoariest jest in conservatism's repertoire is that the three least
credible assertions in the English language are ''The check is in the
mail,'' ''Of course I'll respect you as much in the morning'' and ''I'm
from the government and I'm here to help you.'' Which brings us to the
exquisitely named Help America Vote Act.

Having fixed Iraq and New Orleans, the federal government's healing touch
is now being applied to voting. As a result, days -- perhaps weeks -- might
pass after Election Day without the nation knowing which party controls the
House or Senate. If that happens, one reason might be the Help America Vote
Act, that 2002 bit of federal helpfulness.

For more than two centuries before Congress passed the act, Americans voted. Really.

Using pencils to make marks on paper, and later using machines to punch
holes in paper ballots, voters -- without federal help; imagine -- caused
congresses and presidents to come and go. Some ballots have been better
designed than others, as have some voting machines. Most have been
adequate.

Then came 2000 and Florida and the 36-day lawyers' scrum about George W.
Bush's 537-vote margin of victory. In response to which, Congress passed
the act, which in 2006 may produce fresh confirmation of the prudential
axiom that the pursuit of the perfect is the enemy of the good.

The lesson that should have been learned from Florida was: In Florida, as
in life generally, one should pursue as much precision as is reasonable --
but not more. When, as very rarely happens, a large electorate, such as
that state's 6.1 million voters in 2000, is evenly divided, the many errors
and ambiguities that inevitably will occur will be much more numerous than
the margin of victory. That is unfortunate, but no great injustice will be
done, no matter who is declared the winner in a contest that is essentially
tied.

Unfortunately, the lesson the nation chose to learn from Florida was that
American technological wizardry could prevent such highly unusual events,
and no expense should be spared to do so. Hence the Help America Vote Act,
which made $3.8 billion available for states to purchase the most modern
voting equipment.

On Nov. 7, 38 percent of the nation's voters will use touch-screens to
record their choices, according to Election Data Services. Unlike optical
scanners that read markings put on paper ballots, most touch-screen
machines -- including those which the New York Times reports will be used
in about half of the 45 districts with the most closely contested House
races -- produce no paper that can be consulted for verification of the
results, if a recount is required. Lawsuits have been filed in five states
seeking to block use of touch-screen machines.

Today's political climate makes this an unpropitious moment for introducing
new voting technologies that will be administered by poll workers who often
are retirees for whom the task of working a DVD player is a severe
challenge. So we should not be surprised if, on Nov. 7, new voting
machinery does what new technologies have done through history:
malfunction.

Football, in its disproportionate pursuit of error-free officiating, now
relies on instant replays because . . . well, because it can. This
technology does indeed reduce human error. But it also reduces games to
coagulation as players stand around waiting for officials to study video in
the hope of achieving a degree of precision and certainty more appropriate
to delicate surgery than to the violent thrashing of huge padded men in
what is -- lest we forget, as the judicial solemnities of instant replay
cause us to forget -- a game.

Democracy is not a mere game. But -- write this on a piece of paper, using
a No. 2 pencil -- neither is it an activity from which it is sensible to
demand more precision than can reasonably be expected when, on a November
Tuesday, 100 million people record billions of political choices.

--- BBBS/NT v4.01 Flag-5