Thursday, February 01, 2007

Crist Supports Paper Trails

Charlie Crist will soon unveil his plan for paper trails for voting machines.


''When you go to an ATM machine, you get some kind of a record. You go to a gas station, you get a record of that,'' Crist said. ''So if there's a need for a recount, I think it's important you have something to recount.''


That is an superbly simple and concise sentence. Paper trails aren't 100 percent full proof. It's a reasonable backup system if there is a technical failure in the software. Brad Friedman has been firmly stating that the main problem is the machines themselves.


Adding a "paper trail" to a DRE/touch-screen system is like requiring a seat belt in a Ford Pinto; what good will the seat belts do when the Pinto explodes?


What Friedman has advocated for in the past is stronger oversight. It is a essential that a democracy has fair elections. I reccommend that voting machine companies are restricted from contributing to political campaigns and PACs. This is coming from someone who hates the McCain-Feingold law.

I welcome Crist's support of paper trails. It's a good start. But there is much more work to be done. It's still easy to hack a voting machine.

Side note: Robert Wexler should be commended for convincing Crist to support paper trails.

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