Frank:

I’m actually for hand counted paper ballots. Everybody acts like that is out of the question, but we must have done it for decades so it must be possible. Because of the way government works, it’s very unlikely we’re not going to be using machines and giving many millions of taxpayer dollars to companies that should be sued out of existence instead.

Those of us that have been working for voting integrity try to stay away from the words, “paper trail”, because most states don’t use language in their voting laws that make them an official record, so they are usually ignored as a verification method. “Paper ballots” that are officially counted as the legal record coupled with a good, safe auditing procedure is what we need at a minimum. Utah presently relies solely on the electronic count and the paper printout is just something that makes us feel good.

I actually voted on a paper ballot in the midterms. All I had to do was ask for one at the polling place, but it wasn’t publicized that you could do that. Some places had them, but nobody was required to have enough of them to use in an emergency. I have to admit that it felt good to be marking my choice with a pencil right next to the actual name of the person I was voting for.

Caveat:

On March 12, 2004 the Salt Lake Tribune ran an article entitled, “Voting Machine Selection May Be In Secret”. Voting Equipment Selection Committee member Linda Lunceford was worried that negative news reports concerning the new electronic voting equipment would alarm the public, saying, “I’m trying to mitigate a lot of hysteria created by computer people.” America’s media seems to be sympathetic to those concerns and will rarely interview any real computer expert when reporting on the machines. In 2007, it is obvious to anybody following the issue, that using computers without solid “paper ballots” is doing nothing to instill faith in our voting system.

The last line of that article from way back in 2004 said the committee had decided to model the state’s purchase after one made by Georgia – one of the first states to make the transition to electronic voting. That is basically the system we ended up with except for the addition of a “paper trail”. Until fairly recently, even the term “paper trail” was avoided in the debate apparently in a quest to keep the elections clean of any messy counting problems like we saw in the contentious 2000 race between Bush and Gore. Why have “hanging chads” or curly fading paper mess things up.

This year, the computer experts have been successful in getting most election integrity organizations to finally use the term, “paper ballots” and are racing to sign into law a federal mandate to require them. In Utah this will mean nothing since all records will be sealed and then destroyed after 22 months. Only a judge can open the records in the event of a contest, but depending on your district, you may not be able to see any election records, even if you run for office, making it unlikely you could prove any wrongdoing.

Here’s my speculation. Either our election officials and the Lt. Governor just ignored every local scientist and citizen, as usual, and went with their original decision to go with Diebold out of pride. If that’s not it, some other, (monetary or outright fraud?) force is at work here. I’m not talking exclusively about Lt. Governor Herbert either, because this goes back further then that. In fact Olene Walker was the one who seems to have mandated statewide deployment of the abominable, money sucking, machines when HAVA only mandated one machine per polling place for the handicapped scam. And, yes, I’m calling the use of handicapped people to roll out these pieces of crap a scam, and I have proof.

In other words, has the “Matrix” system been reinstated to secretly spy on Utahn’s at their own expense in order to test a system for the federal government?

Where are the gun nuts when you REALLY need them?