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Readers' Comments

A selection of our reader comments is provided below. We believe these statements are particularly relevant to our core question: "Do electronic voting machines improve the voting process?"

We posted these pro, con, and neutral comments in the approximate ratio that we received them. (For example, if 60% of the responses received are "pro," then about 60% of the responses posted below would be "pro").

The comments are arranged in reverse chronological order -- most recent first. We sometimes edit comments for brevity, clarity, and spelling. We may also remove comments posted when we find better comments covering the same issues. To preserve confidentiality, only the writer's first name is noted, unless he/she has waived confidentiality. Respondents are generally notified when we add their comments to this section.

  • NEUTRAL 11/09/06 - "I agree that the old voting machines should be improved on, but why can't they leave a paper trail? My suggestion: give every candidate a UPC code. Have the voter choose the sticker with the code for their candidate, affix it to a card in the appropriate box and have a scanner scan the cards. The counts could be immediate, but if there were any question, we could always retrieve the cards. The stickers could be color coded to avoided placing a candidate in the wrong box. For example, all presidential candidates have green stickers and your choice goes in the green box on your card, all orange stickers go in the orange box and are for senator, purple for your congressman, etc (avoiding red and blue). The UPC codes could contain information as to the year, voting district, etc. and then a code specific to the candidate. Would this really be so hard? It would be like Voter Bingo!"
    Jennifer 11/09/06

  • CON 11/09/06 - "I do not trust the electronic voting machines. I believe the individual ballots are more correct with less chance of corruption"
    Ricky 11/09/06

  • CON 8/24/06 - "This is a very interesting site. I was extremely distressed that the folks speaking "PRO" on the issue of Electronic Voting Machine accuracy did not really answer the question. Sure, the machines can prevent "hanging chads" and such things as over-votes and under-votes, but....... they did not speak to the issue of whether or not the votes are actually recorded (and thus tabulated) as each voter intended. To me, that is truly what "accuracy" means. Would it do any good to go back to the people who responded "PRO" on the accuracy of the electronic voting machines and ask them to speak to whether or not the machines can be trusted to ACCURATELY record and count the votes? When I worked for an accountant years ago, we always created a paper trail when using the calculator. I can't imagine an accountant (especially dealing with the IRS) getting away with saying "Just trust me" without having the documentation to back up their figures."
    Regina 8/24/06

  • NEUTRAL 8/9/06 - "Do the ends justify the means? It seems that politicians believe that holding on to their office justifies any means of winning. I therefore do not trust any voting process over which they exert control."
    Kirk 8/9/06

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