International Herald Tribune Editorial - Good news from Florida
Copyright by The International Herald Tribune
Published: February 5, 2007
Florida, famous for doing so much wrong in its elections, is poised to take two very important right steps. First, Governor Charlie Crist says he plans to end the use of touch-screen voting machines that do not produce a paper record. Florida's move may finally sound the death knell for these unreliable, inherently anti-democratic voting machines.
Crist is asking the legislature to finance the purchase of new optical- scan machines, and it is expected to agree. Choosing optical scans is Crist's second good move. In optical- scan voting, voters mark a paper ballot that is then read by a computer. These paper ballots are the official ballots, and can be recounted by hand to resolve a dispute.
More than half the states require computerized voting machines to produce a paper record. The addition of Florida would be a major defeat for election officials and voting-machine companies that have stubbornly opposed paper-trail requirements.
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