Will Your Vote Count?

Dan Gillmor suggests that the delay in the recall election gives California a chance to "get it right":

So, if the Appeals Court ruling delaying the California recall holds up, it'll likely ensure the installation of more modern voting machines throughout California. So far, so good.

But if the result is the use of touch-screen machines that have no verifiable audit trail -- a paper printout of the ballot so the voter can verify his or her choices -- then we'll have created a monster. Unfortunately, local and state voting officials have been almost totally tone-deaf to the danger, and many of the machines already installed are demonstrably open to doubt. (See the Verified Voting website, operated by Stanford University's David Dill, a computer scientist who has blown the whistle -- and is finally being heard to some degree - on this scandal.)

Nothing is more important to our trust in democracy than a verifiable ballot. Yet we're rushing headlong toward a system where we can't be sure that our votes are being counted at all. This is nuts. Let's use the delay, assuming it happens, to make these electronic machines believable. There's a lot at stake.

For good background reading on the subject of electronic voting, visit http://www.verifiedvoting.org/ This site is founded by David L. Dill, a Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at Stanford University. It's a good enough link to add to your permanent blogroll.