To the Editor:

     The Bucks County Coalition for Voting Integrity has confirmed that the Bucks County commissioners are still considering the purchase of touch-screen voting machines, even though again and again these have been proved to be insecure and vulnerable to tampering as well as subject to slow boot-ups and crashes during voting days.

     Touch-screens afford no reliable audit trails or recount vehicles. The only voting machine on the market that does is the optical scanner, and the variety CVI endorses is the precinct-based optical scanner. Voters have a tangible ballot to verify their choice, and those who count votes, recount, and audit them have a relatively cost-free method of doing so that is infinitely more reliable than the alternative.

     A government organization, the Government Accountability Office, has published a report seriously questioning the viability of the touch-screen machines, for all the reasons given above. Chester County, PA, is risking loss of HAVA Title 1 funding to hold on to its punch-card machines. The state of New Mexico will use precinct-based optical scanners for all future elections. Nineteen municipalities in Bucks County have signed a resolution favoring voter-verified paper records (as mandated in HB 2000 and SB 977). The list goes on.

     We urge citizens to do what they can to persuade our commissioners to make the right choice. For further information, please go to our Web site at www.coalitionforvotingintegrity.org.

Marta Steele

Press Liaison

Coalition for Voting Integrity