Chads, touchscreens and lies

Dan Rather’s excellent investigative report on electronic voting asks questions which haven’t gotten a lot of press lately. Ignoring the continued problems with the software running on these voting machines, Dan Rather looks at the hardware itself.

The results are pretty staggering. Dan discovered serious problems in quality control, questionable decision making by management and a complete disconnect between internal communication and what the company has said publicly to the government and the voting public.

But perhaps the most damning part of the report is at the end as Rather talks to numerous ex-employees of Sequoia, the manufacturer of the paper ballots infamously used in Florida during the 2000 election. What they describe is nothing short then the intentional and malicious efforts of the company to damage the integrity of the election process, thereby causing fear, distrust and anger among the voting public and those running for office. If you want to learn how one company sabotaged an election and caused the phrase “hanging chad” to become part of the English vernacular, this is a must watch segment.

Dan correctly points out that we as a nation can no longer accept these companies hiding behind “trade secrets” and “intellectual property protection” if we want to have fair and accurate elections. We as a country must come to terms with this problem and require our elected officials to create a solution that allows all of us to know that our vote will count on election day.