Thursday, March 22, 2018

Protecting our votes

When problems have self-evident solutions, but the solutions are not adopted, you have to wonder why.  We have known for years that paper ballots provide a barrier to hacking.  Way back in 2000 I was in charge of a polling place in San Anselmo, California.  Voters were handed a paper ballot which they marked.  They then ran the ballot through a scanner.  The results were available immediately after the polls closed, but if there was even a hint of a problem, the paper ballots could be examined and counted.  They had been deposited in a bin underneath the scanner.


Even if somehow someone tampered with the scanner, we had a paper record of the votes.  That was 18 years ago, and we are still debating how to prevent hacking of our elections.  Instead of adopting a simple technology, Republicans in state after state are focusing on in-person vote fraud, a non-issue.  It is so painfully obvious why they are doing that. 

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