Good News From Florida

As I argued in a previous YDO entry, paperless "E-voting" machines are dangerous to democracy because they are very prone to fraud, they leave no verifiable ballot record, and their manufacturers refuse to allow audits of the top-secret internal software.

I noted in that entry that some states like California are taking action to prevent the blind acceptance of these machines. Well, you can now count Florida on that list as well. A judge there has ruled that touch-screen voting machines are not exempt from the requirement that manual recounts must be possible at all polling places. Unbelievably, the Division of Elections in Florida had given touchscreen machines a pass on recounts. Even more bizarre, the Florida Secretary of State (who is no longer Katherine Harris...sorry Auntie Kathy!) has vowed to appeal the ruling. Why would she oppose a requirement that all votes must be recountable? I guess she must Hate America (TM).

Anyway, it's a good thing that Florida of all states is acting to ensure it can hold a legitimate election, because the upcoming Presidential vote is shaping up to be a real nail-biter there once again. (The linked site, www.electoral-vote.com, provides a very cool map of all 50 states and their current polling numbers and what it all means for the electoral vote count. You can click on any state to get its polling history, as linked above for Florida).