To the Editor:

 

I agree fully with your concluding sentence in your March 7 editorial, “Coalition keeps at it”:  “Let us have voting machines we can rely on.”  But I am concerned about the idea expressed in the two preceding sentences: “To the voting machine dissection teams, we say, overlook nothing. Give us a definitive thumbs up or down.”

 

The voting machine dissection teams, as you describe the computer experts, Dr. Daniel Lopresti and Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, cannot give a definitive thumbs up or down on the security or accuracy of the machines they are examining.  They may find major security flaws like a Princeton team found in voting machines.  However, if they do not find such security flaws, that does not mean that the machines are secure and accurate. These computer experts cannot examine the software programming inside these machines, which has been responsible for innumerable accuracy flaws in past elections. Many New Mexico citizens did not have their presidential votes recorded and counted in 2004, prompting the governor to replace all Danaher and Sequoia touch-screen machines with a voter-marked paper ballot/optical scanner system. With this system, the voter marks a paper ballot himself, which is then inserted into an optical scanner, counted and saved for recounts and audits.

 

The Bucks County commissioners say the Danaher voting machines performed smoothly in the last election.  In reality, no one knows if they recorded the votes correctly because there are no voter-marked paper ballots to compare with the machine results. No recount was called for in the close congressional election between former Congressman Fitzpatrick and Congressman Murphy because pushing the button on the machine again would only print out the same vote totals.

 

Please tell the county commissioners candidates in Bucks and Montgomery Counties that these Danaher and Sequoia voting systems need to be replaced by a voter-marked paper ballot/optical scan voting system.  When this happens, we will all give a thumbs up for our accurate voting system.

 

Madeline Rawley

Doylestown Township