This is a very smart post, particularly from someone calling themselves “potatohead” at DailyKos: “About Touch Screen Voting”.
I’d quote something from it, but then you’d be less likely to click over and read the whole thing.
The author has almost everything exactly right, discussing concepts that BRAD BLOG readers should understand very very well by now, but using different words than I usually do, so it may help everything soak in a bit more.
He (presuming a “he” here) even extends his explanation of the inherent, unfixable problem that make touch-screen voting systems 100% unverifiable (and, therefore, antithetical to American democracy) to explain why both “open source” computer voting systems and Internet Voting can’t work either, for the same reasons.
Only quibble: He needs to put the word “hand-” before the words “marked ballots” and we’d be 100% golden. Thank you, “potatohead”.
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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but defends vote by mail – sigh.
I wouldn’t call that much of a defense, frankly. I too would encourage VBM if the only other choice was using a touch-screen. Though I (like he) would note that dropping it off at the precinct (or at a drop-off site, as he mentions in Oregon where they are 100% VBM) is preferred to using a mailbox.