I’d like to call your attention to this week’s electile dysfunction news, which is about a mini-Minnesota situation in Fairfax County, Virginia. I think it’s instructive because it illustrates how some problems with "paperless" voting are actually quite similar to a more old-fashioned form of voting, "paper only" voting, and a mooted new-fangled kind of voting, Internet voting.

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The dust has settled – sort of – in the “lost ballots snafu”
in Palm Beach County Florida, enough that I can correct a very serious
mis-reading of the events, and briefly summarize the two completely
contradictory “outcomes” of investigation: (1) it’s an accounting problem, not
a technology problem, and (2) it’s a technology problem. Either way, the result
is a failed election – not just a clouded outcome, but a completely failed
election. The very short story: a recount was needed, 3000+ ballots couldn’t be

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As a sad example of suspicion arising from current e-voting systems, I’d like you to read a story that I don’t really know how to believe — which is my point.

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It seems like e-voting snafus are like weather: there’s
always a bit of a storm somewhere, and now and then you get a big one. Although
we can thank our lucky stars that we haven’t had a real hurricane, an
electronic equivalent of Florida in 2000, the recent
Arkansas vote-flipping
snafu might qualify as a force 9 gale.

And because this time it is clear the outcome of the race
was also flipped, this case of Arkansas State House District 45 in 2008 might

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Today’s news of e-voting malfunction underscores my previous point about complexity of voting systems. This time, about 4000 ballots went uncounted in North Carolina’s election this week.

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