Venezuela and Touch Screen voting (A bizzarre story)

A company hired to help deliver voting results in the recall referendum against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced Friday it will buy back the government's shares in the firm -- a move meant to deflect criticism that the government's investment was a tool to manipulate the election.

The announcement by software maker Bizta Corp. comes amid an escalating uproar in Venezuela over the reliability and trustworthiness of the ''touch-screen'' voting machines, purchased in February for $91 million. The machines have never been used in an election anywhere.

28 PERCENT

The Herald reported last month that the government purchased a 28 percent stake in Bizta, through a venture capital fund, in June 2003 -- just a few months before the company bid for the elections contract.

''They were caught. We discovered the fraud and now they are covering it up,'' said Ernesto Alvarenga, an opposition congressman. ``We still have to be careful. All of this is related to the electronic fraud that they are trying to achieve.''
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8905053.htm

...votes, or you'd be giving over control of your elections to a private company.

I'd rather the people were in control that a private company.

Significantly, these machines print out a ballot, which the voter reviews for accuracy and then dropps in a ballot box. The machines count the vote instantaneously and there is a paper trail.

They wanted Diebold