News & Insights
We’re Making History in Real Time.
Our timely insights share informed perspectives on the rapidly evolving story of Election Technology, as it unfolds.
Fewer Touchscreens, But Just as Much Technology
Today some good news that is also annoying and misleading.
Palm Beach Lost Votes: Paper is not the Problem
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
Out-sourced elections: an about-face?
It looks like there may some movement away from the current situation in which U.S. elections are increasingly outsourced and privatized.
A first: election system vendors admits losing votes
Here is a first-ever admission: a real software bug in a real voting system can drop real votes, and has dropped votes. And perhaps has been doing so for years. I wrote earlier about the wrangle between the state of Ohio and Premier Election Systems (formerly Diebold), in which some real vote dropping was blamed on anti-virus software (which wasn't allowed to be in the machines in the first place!).