"The County budget for 2007 doesn't include money for more machines. Corroon says technical support and housing for existing machines has cost the county "millions and millions" of dollars already and he hopes the state and federal governments step up and help with the expense."
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Salt Lake Mayor Peter Corroon is the cousin of Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
Regardless of whether the county, state or feds pay for voting systems, the funds come from taxpayer pockets.
Salt Lake County's election administration costs could be reduced (almost in half) by switching to an optical scan paper ballot system to save money, reduce poll lines and increase voting system trustworthiness.
RE COSTS:
Utah's Lt. Governor Gary Herbert strong-armed Utah's counties into selecting an expensive, insecure voting system by withholding federal funds for any county which did not agree to purchase Diebold touch-screen voting systems. Herbert's office also had a secret executive session meeting with Emery County Commissioners and Diebold representatives after which the only County Clerk, Bruce Funk, who said he refused to use Diebold DRE voting machines, had the locks changed on his office door to prevent this 23 year elected veteran election official from going to work.
Here are some cost studies comparing the costs of using direct recording electronic (DRE) machines with optical scan machines:
A majority of U.S. jurisdictions use optical scan voting systems today. Several jurisdictions currently using touch-screen DREs are planning to switch to optical scan voting systems - including Cuyahoga County, OH, Sarasota County, FL and all of MD (often over the objections of their election officials who seem to be unduly influenced by voting machine vendor salespersons in an almost cultish fashion).
Founder and President of US Count Votes, dba The National Election Data Archive and volunteer for honest, accurately counted elections since 2003. Masters degree in mathematics with emphasis on computer science. Has written numerous academic and scientific papers with computer scientists, statisticians, and mathematicians on election integrity topics, inluding how to calculate minimum manual audit amounts necessary to ensure election outcome integrity.
It seems that the manufactures of these machines should be held libel for the cost of these machines. It looks like they did not perform as advertised and should be returned under warranty for a full refund. My understanding of warranty is that the product in question should perform as advertised when use according to the supplied instructions. If these machines didn't perform correctly under these conditions, they should be covered. Even if they were sold without any warranty, many states have laws that would still require some means of redress.
by
John Rogue (2 articles, 125 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 11 comments)
on Sunday, December 10, 2006 at 2:10:44 PM
1 comments
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