The "discovery" of a ballot box "misplaced" on an election day in Texas nudged "Landslide Lyndon" Johnson to an 87-vote victory in the Democrat runoff for the U.S. Senate nomination in 1948.
Race ahead in time to electronic voting. What's changed⢠Only the technology.
Eight Pennsylvania counties use direct recording electronic devices including Beaver, Greene and Mercer counties. Many others use optical scanners to read ballots. Allegheny and Westmoreland still use lever machines.
By Jan. 1, 2006, lever and punch-card voting are to be discontinued across the country because of the Florida punch-card debacle.
Professor Aviel D. Rubin of Johns Hopkins University says electronic voting systems can be hacked. Mr. Rubin took a turn as an election judge and found many of the vulnerabilities he first saw were "unrealistic." However he found others.
Notably, the systems do not leave a "paper trail" that can be used to verify their accuracy. We might need that.
Scrape away the computer "gee-whiz", however, and you have machines. They can break down or be sabotaged. They can be improved. So, as always, vigilance in preserving the integrity of the voting process is vital.
But all should settle down. Treating electronic voting like an aboriginal who sees a mirror for the first time is unflattering to a 21st-century American.
