Yes, the Volusia County Council has voted 4 to 3 against authorizing the purchase of new touch-screen voting systems from Diebold Election Systems. Florida state law mandated that all counties must have at least one state-certified touch-screen machine in place by July 1. These new machines meet the handicap-access requirement to enable blind voters to receive verbal prompts to help them vote.

Volusia County Council refused to authorize the machines purchase because they do not generate a paper receipt of a person's vote thus permitting possible political rigging. What was Diebold thinking? Maybe it is just me but an auditing function should be an obvious feature for something as important as a person's vote.

To have no tangible audit trail capability built into these systems for the individual voter appears to be a major design oversight. Even ATMs give you a paper receipt.

Diebold claims that the touch-screen machines are "completely reliable" and that they provide an internal paper receipt that can print out all votes cast. Seems like they have all the mechanics in place to easily convert these machines to print an individual's receipt. So why don't they do this?

Meanwhile back in Florida, Ion Sancho, the supervisor of elections in Leon county (which uses optical scanning technology), is also holding out. He would like to get certification for these optical scan voting devices which do produce individual paper receipts. "Voters demand that we can account for every vote 100% accurately", says Sancho, "And my goal is to make sure the votes are counted as intended."

It is critical that we have confidence that each and every vote will be counted and counted correctly. Florida, indeed every state, must have systems in place that restore our voters' confidence in the electoral process. And this boils down the the voting equipment

I welcome your comments.

Yours In BI and audit trail success,

Claudia