5 day forecast
Voting systems need to be secure and recountable
Share with others:
Regarding the editorial "ID Debate: Pennsylvania Must Sort Out Its Voting Law Soon" (Nov. 20): When a candidate receives zero votes, don't shout "fraud." Call for recountable voting systems.
In 75 percent of the counties of Pennsylvania, we vote on machines that provide no sure way of recounting or auditing our elections. We vote by faith -- we trust that the machines record our intentions correctly, with no ballot to prove it later. What we do now is no better than shouting our slate of candidates to a person with a pencil and paper behind a curtain and expecting a correct tally to come out at the end.
Since 2005, VoteAllegheny, a local nonpartisan organization working toward decent voting systems, and VotePA, a coalition of local groups across the commonwealth, have advocated, networked nationwide and educated our elected officials, party representatives, news media, citizens and other advocacy organizations. Some counties understood and have changed their systems. But most of the commonwealth has ignored the issue.
We need new safe, secure, accessible, recountable voting systems.
Newspapers reporting these issues should bring forth the mountains of information we have provided, consult our members or our websites (VotePA.us and VoteAllegheny.org) for information and news, and advocate in editorials.
You are correct: Voter ID wouldn't solve the reported problems.
We need secure voting systems that provide for voter-verified paper ballots. Then we can regularly audit a percentage of the vote for assurance that the machines have performed correctly, and we can always pull out all the ballots to recount any race.
It's obvious. Faith-based voting? Please, no!
AUDREY N. GLICKMAN
Secretary/Treasurer
VoteAllegheny
Greenfield
First Published November 26, 2012 12:00 am
