Even Paranoids Have Enemies

Dionne:

I speak here of all who are worried sick that those new, fancy high-tech voting systems can be hacked, fiddled with and otherwise made to record votes that aren't cast or fail to record votes that are.

I do not pretend to know how large a threat this is. I do know that it's a threat to democracy when so many Americans doubt that their votes will be recorded accurately. And I also know that smart, computer-savvy people are concerned about these machines.

The perfectly obvious thing is for the entire country to do what a number of states have already done: require paper trails so that if we have a close election or suspect something went wrong, we have the option to go back and check the results.

Even if we assume that electronic voting machines are accurate the mere belief that they aren't or are being tampered with is a danger. Everything has to be done to bring about confidence in the democratic process. There is no tamper-proof method of voting; paper ballot boxes can be "stuffed" or go missing. But with the electronic machines too many things can go wrong - ever had a computer crash on you? - and without some method of verification it's too easy, and too tempting, for someone with an agenda to invisibly throw some votes this way or that way.

My fantasy is to have an election in which some smart person rigs voting machines to make Donald Duck the winner. That would wake a few people up.


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