Reader comments
Vote 'no' on paper ballots

Don't be fooled by this editorial. We need paper receipts to prevent against voter fraud. Become an informed voter and do a search on Youtube (video website) with the search term:

"Electronic Voting Machines Whistle Blower".

You will find a video of a computer programmer giving testimony how he was asked by a congressman to write a program to fix an election using electronic voting machines.

Paper ballots have always been suspect. That's why the Democrats want them. They already know how to rig paper ballots, they have been doing it for years in Chicago.

That's an entertaining editorial, but it doesn't explain why computer technology experts believe in President Ronald Reagan's "Trust, but verify!" principle. We demand receipts at grocery stores and when using a charge card, since electronic records can vanish, as any computer user knows. Hand marked paper ballots counted by an optical scanner are still the gold standard because to recount them you have a tangible, durable record and you can watch the officials who are doing the recount. With paper ballots, even if the power failed on election day and the batteries were too low to function, you can vote by candle light and the votes can be scanned the next day, with "chain-of-custody" protocols guarding the results and avoiding long lines or revotes. When using scores of computer-type machines, the very least we can do to secure the record is to utilize a parallel paper record. But with computer-only systems, we create convenience for the staff, and unverifiable, "faith-based" outcomes. That doesn't pass the test of President Reagan's sensible advice, and it ignores the need be able to find errors and correct them.

We rely on paper verification in a myriad of ways in our "paperless" society.Most obvious is the ATM machine.Yes I can get bank statement or look up on-line the but I like the verification of all types (calling bank,monthly statements etc).I the case of electoral machines the ease of a voter knowing what they voted for is shown to them in a multiple form is one extra back up to the validity of their vote.The Republicans hope not to have "motor voter" etc to me which is reminiscent of the voting practices against minorities in the South n the (60's "Read this if your black","How many gumballs in the bottle" etc) and to me m seam to me would be for least scrutiny in an era when only 50% of the populace votes is even REGISTERED to vote.Nothing to be proud of when we sell our values as our main world export.Anyway to remove ancient "hanging chads) can be done away by Diebold and others and a sample of the paper gives not only the individual reassurance but us all which can only hel the ENTIRE belief is system s suspect on so many fronts.
Sincerely
Charle Katz

The ignorance of this editorial is astounding. Those who don't want our elections run by private corporations using secret machines and secret software don't need "a couple of aspirins." Rather, the Dessert News editorial board needs its collective head examined for saying that casting and counting the votes on secret machines and secret software owned by private corporations with hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts is a good thing and won't lead to problems.

Opponents of paperless electronic voting are not "spouting anecdotal evidence of irregularities." We rely on reports from Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy, which found these machines easily hacked, and from computer expert Harri Hursti, who found that opti-scan machines have memory cards with executable code and that opti-scans are also easily hacked. Aside from the threat of hacking, these machines are not reliable. In the New Hampshire primary, opti-scan machines had an error rate 163 percent higher than allowed by law!

The Dessert News does a disservice to their readers by shrugging off legitimate concerns of those who do not want private corporations running our elections on secret machines. The only thing secret about our elections should be the secret ballot.

All this article does is insult my intelligence and expose the ignorance of the writer, but then anybody in the voting integrity movement is used to this kind of nonsense. To claim that computer savvy youth are trusting of this new secret technology is a severe lie that insults their intelligence also.

Can we have somebody besides Pollyanna writing our editorials. This is a serious problem, not a joke!

The editor is right, we shouldn't have paper trails. Utahns shouldn't add one more lousy layer of technology to voting systems that are already proven fraudulent, easy-to hack and manipulate election results undetectably. Technology experts such as those quoted by Steve Heller above, and the U. of California "Top to Bottom Review" of 2007, have proven that hacking "around" a paper trail is quite simple to do. Want to vote on a corporate-owned-and-operated machine whose software is considered a trade secret by the courts, and which even your own election officials are not allow to look at? Want to add paper for a higher level of "confidence"? Try the first few letters: "Con". That's the electronic voting machine (and printer) game. There are simple ways to add enhanced security procedures to hand-counted paper ballot elections, such as videocameras on the ballot box all day, citizens monitoring the election and counting the votes AT the PRECINCT; posting totals at the precinct level, that make hand-counted paper ballots the voting method susceptible to the least amount of fraud of all other systems, ESPECIALLY electronic voting. Check out "Hacked! High Tech Election Theft in America".

Vickie Karp

Who wrote this, Robert Pelletier aka Wally O'Diebold?

Heavens No! Please DO NOT give me a paper trail on that Diebold ATM transaction. I know that machines can never make a mistake. It's a huge waste of resources. I know that people never try to steal elections that result in the control of billions of private contracts and the disposition of power.

By the same token, please do not give me a paper trail on my home deed or home insurance. This will cause global warming and leads to a mistrust in humankind. And by the same token, do NOT fund the war industry because that, too, is a distrusting of humankind.

If Utah wants to use the electronic voting machines that is fine, but we should have a paper trail to ensure the counts are accurate. Explain to me how this country can track thousands of bank transactions handling millions of dollars a day and yet we can't accurately count our citizens votes. The difference between the two is not easily explained away.

huh?