[Infowarrior] - MD, VA, other states ditching e-voting machines

[Richard Forno]

Paper Ballot Has Md.'s, Va.'s Vote
2 States Plan to Ditch Electronic Machines, Part of a Rapid National  
Reversal

By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 30, 2008; B01

Goodbye, electronic voting. Farewell, fancy touch screen. Maryland and  
Virginia are going old school after Tuesday's election.

Maryland will scrap its $65 million electronic system and go back to  
paper ballots in time for the 2010 midterm elections -- and will still  
be paying for the abandoned system until 2014. In Virginia, localities  
are moving to paper after the General Assembly voted last year to  
phase out electronic voting machines as they wear out.

It was just a few years ago that electronic voting machines were  
heralded as a computerized panacea to the hanging chad, a state-of-the- 
art system immune to the kinds of hijinks and confusion that some say  
make paper ballots vulnerable. But now, after concern that the  
electronic voting machines could crash or be hacked, the two states  
are swinging away from the systems, saying paper ballots filled out by  
hand are more reliable, especially in a recount.

The trend reflects a national movement away from electronic voting  
machines. About a third of all voters will use them Tuesday, down from  
a peak of almost 40 percent in 2006, according to Election Data  
Services, a Manassas-based consulting firm specializing in election  
administration. Every jurisdiction that has changed election systems  
since 2006 has gone to paper ballots read by optical scan machines,  
said Kimball Brace, the firm's president. And for the first time in  
the country's history, fewer jurisdictions will be using electronic  
machines than in the previous election, he said.

"The battle for the hearts and minds of voters on whether electronic  
systems are good or bad has been lost," Brace said. The academics and  
computer scientists who said they were unreliable "have won that  
battle."


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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/29/AR2008102904105_pf.html