Editorial: Regardless of result, voting procedures must be reviewed

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There’s nothing like winning an election to quell paranoia over intentional voting fraud.

Partisans who alleged “black box voting” delivered Ohio’s 20 electoral votes (and therefore, the presidency) to Republican George W. Bush in 2004, are decidedly less agitated since Democrats swept to power in both houses of Congress last month.

However, it’s a mistake for anyone, Democrat or Republican, to suddenly dismiss inherently risky voting procedures based on which party won or lost. Bush won the most votes in Ohio only because a private vendor that protects its software as propriety information said so. Two years later In Ohio, Democrats wrested a U.S. Senate seat and the governorship from Republicans only because a private vendor that protects its software as propriety information said so.

To shield the software code from public officials is, in effect, privatized vote counting, and it’s bad public policy regardless of which party wins. In Florida, one hotly contested Congressional race resulted in a huge undercount of votes in one county. The culprit appears to be a faulty ballot design that concealed the race on the computer screen, but that can’t be confirmed unless the software information is shared or a paper backup exists.

Such a problem can’t happen in the city of Tomah, where optical scan ballots are used. The optical scan combines the speed of electronic vote counting with the security of a paper trail, and voters get to mark a paper ballot in which all the races are clearly visible. It’s the optimum form of voting, and it should be the federal Help American Vote Act’s preferred method of casting ballots.

The idea that a Republican-leaning CEO of a voting-machine manufacturer would program machines to achieve a partisan outcome can now be dismissed as a paranoid fantasy. However, machines that break down or fail to properly register the intent of voters are verified facts. In Tomah, citizens enjoy the privilege of knowing their votes will count on election day. It’s a privilege voters deserve everywhere in the United States.