Counties across Colorado have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on security for electronic voting machines, reports the Denver Post The court-ordered improvements include security seals and video monitoring equipment. But, machines in Jefferson County and the majority of those in Denver and Adams counties still won’t have a paper trail. The counties have until 2008 to comply with that basic security measure. What kind of machine will you be trusting to count your vote? Sequoia? That company can’t even print ballots correctly. Diebold? Princeton researchers say those machines can be easily hacked, and a Maryland woman received purported access codes for them in the mail.
Check out the Post‘s county-by-county map of e-voting systems and diagrams of how they (should) work.
While technology was supposed to make elections easier, it appears the hanging chad has been replaced by a host of other concerns.
The prospect of electronic glitches and attacks has led Minnesota and New Mexico to ban computerized voting machines and to lawsuits to block their use in Colorado and at least eight other states.
In the past four weeks, county clerks have been hustling to implement court-ordered security improvements in response to the Colorado suit.
The Denver Election Commission bought new video monitoring equipment and made other changes estimated to cost $115,000.
Jefferson County expects to spend $60,000 more than planned for cameras and rental trucks to move equipment, said election director Susan Miller.
Larimer County had to purchase extra security seals for computers, new video cameras to train on election equipment and $20,000 worth of extra computer storage space for video.
“This could be a $300,000, a $400,000 hit by the time we’re done,” said Scott Doyle, Larimer County clerk and recorder.
