Touch-screen troubles, elsewhere
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s technology enables us to perform old tasks in newer, more efficient ways, it also creates suspicion that maybe the old ways weren't so bad, after all.
That's certainly been the story of touch-screen voting -- if not in Utah, certainly in other states around the country. California, Florida, Ohio and, most recently, Colorado have announced they'll be ditching their various touch-screen machines in favor of punch-card or optical-scan ballots. The troubles those states have had are truly alarming, as chronicled in a Jan. 6 story by The New York Times. Software glitches, undercounts, poor on-screen ballot design and other problems have so frustrated election officials they've decided the hassle is no longer worth it -- public confidence has been damaged, perhaps beyond repair.
Not so in the Beehive State, where Joe Demma, chief of staff for Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert, says Utah's experience with touch-screen voting has seen 100 percent success. Our state, Demma says, has complete confidence in the touch-screen system. "It's just that other states don't know how to run elections like Utah does," he told Standard-Examiner reporter Marshall Thompson.
In 2005, Utah signed a $30 million contract to purchase Diebold AccuVote TSx machines -- enough to move Utah from its punch-card system to touch-screen voting over the following several years. Those same machines are the ones that Ohio officials, for example, have had so much trouble with, most notably software problems and paper jams in the paper-record printers.
Utah election officials report none of these difficulties -- which means, we guess, that we're either very lucky or very good when it comes to handling these machines.
Demma says after each election, counties audit between 1 percent and 5 percent of votes, comparing the printed record against the electronic memory cards in the touch-screen machines. "Our audits show we are 100 percent accurate," he told our reporter. "The machines haven't made any errors."
That is certainly good news, especially compared to the problems other states have been experiencing. It would be interesting to see if an independent auditor -- a disinterested third party -- would arrive at the same conclusions as the government's auditors.
It might help put to rest any lingering doubt in Utahns' minds. It would be a good-faith gesture on the part of government to allow such an audit, perhaps after the upcoming Feb. 5 presidential primary elections.
That way, our "100 percent accurate" system really could be certified as such, and states like California, Florida, Ohio and Colorado would be left wondering how they got it so wrong.
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