Voting machines problems--already

As many had predicted (including me), the electronic voting systems are likely to be troublesome, if not downright threats to our country itself.

It is almost unbelievable, but some electronic voting systems in Florida failed within the first hours of use. So much for vendor claims of reliability.

Even more alarming, some of the systems apparently require telecom links back to another system in another location. The article referenced above describes how poll workers had to call on the telephone to verify voter registration, because the data link went down.

How on earth could elected officials agree to buy voting systems that rely on remote systems and datalinks? Anyone that has ever suffered at the hands of dropped modem connections knows these things don't always work. And any network technician can tell you that temporary hookups, like those that would be required for one day (or in Florida's case, two weeks) of voting, would be even more likely to fail.

I've got my fingers crossed that we get through this election without the contentious vote-counting issues of four years ago, but I don't have a good feeling about this. This time, I hope I'm wrong.

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