Maryland to abandon touch-screen voting

Source: Delaware News Journal

Md. to abandon touch-screen voting
Associated Press
Posted Friday, January 18, 2008 at 6:05 am

ANNAPOLIS -- The state will abandon the touch-screen voting machines that have sparked years of protests and replace the system with devices that permit a manual recount.

Maryland purchased the machines in the wake of the 2000 Florida election. They have been criticized as unreliable and susceptible to tampering.

Gov. Martin O'Malley has proposed $6.8 million to buy optical-scan machines, which can read paper ballots filled in by voters with pencil or pen.

But the new machines will not be available until 2010. That's too late for this year's presidential primary or general election

Read more: http://www.newsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080118/NEWS/80118004/1006

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Well at least they're getting rid of them. Let's hope that Maryland is blue enough to continue it's trend of electing democrats in the fall election

Let's hope financially things don't get worse and they scrap that plan. After using the current machines I wondered why I even bothered, there's no evidence for what I just voted for.

Optical scan machines are what we had before we got the touch-screens, in my precinct anyway.

Good for O'Malley!! :thumbsup:

The whole history of "I told you so"

http://blackboxvoting.com/s9/index.php?serendipity%5Baction%5D=search&serendipity%5BsearchTerm%5D=maryland

We warned them before they paid $55 million. They wouldn't listen. Wel,, some folks did, but election officials and Diebold allies in the legislature kept fighting back attempts to cancel the contract.

nt

Why can't we use the stuff we had before these machines? Did we throw those away? Now we got to spend $6.8 million in taxpayer money to rectify the multi-million dollar mistake.

I used to have punch card ballots/readers in my precinct that worked just fine.

... hope someone in a position of authority comes across this obsecure reply to this post, or at least hears from someone else with the same idea who is more likely to have their ear.

Makes me wonder if the hackers were hacked.

Good riddance to the machines!