Anyone living in Washoe County, Nevada ... a call to arms.

Public Forum discussing touch-screen voting machines being brought into the state before the next presidential election 6pm Thursday, December 4, at the Washoe County Commission Chambers, 1001 E. 9th Street in Reno.

Today's Reno-Gazette Journal (Tuesday, December 2, 2003) has an article on the front page of the Reno&Sparks section discussing Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller's attempt to bring touch-screen voting to Washoe County and 15 other counties in time for the next presidential election. He doesn't want the machines to include printers so the voters can have a paper receipt. He whines that they cost an additional $500 per machine, totaling $250,000 for Washoe County and $2.5 million statewide. He also whines that, "adding more moving parts could gum up the election process - such as a paper jam in the printer." He further whines, "voters get upset if they have to wait. If you talk to any clerk who has actually used these machines, all of us would be in agreement that is not required."

Washoe County Registrar Ban Burk claims that touch screen machines cannot be hacked because, "they are free standing and not connected with the internet." Two paragraphs later Bruk states that this would cost $3.5 million (sans printers) for 700 machines and a "centralized computer." Gee, sounds connected to something that isn't solely internal nor wholly secure.

Sequoia Voting Systems is one of the two vendors that Heller is looking at to place his order for the machines (no mention of who the other vendor is). Alfie Charles of Sequoia says his company, "hopes the National Election Commission will certify the printers' use by early next year."

Clark County (where Las vegas resides for those who don't know Nevadan geography) has been using this type of voting since 1996. They already have 3000 of them, "without problems and without paper printers." Washoe County is the state's other major population center. Reno and Sparks are found here; home to several hundred thousand people that are about to be disenfranchised...

We have a friend in Washoe COunty Commissioner Jim Galloway because he's pressuring for the printers. He prefers keeping our current optic-scan paper ballots (fill-in-the-bubble ballots).

I've never been an activist. I wouldn't know where to really begin to fight this other than leaving class early on thursday and going to the public forum. Neither my stepdad (republican) nor my mom (republican?) likes the idea of using anything other than fill-in-the-bubble ballots. They might go, they might not. I have 2 seperate classes between now and then, so I'll try to get others interested. I'm in college with classmates ranging in age from fresh-from-high-school to looking for a second/third/fourth career, so I have a pool of many people from which to find others to go.

Some Bios:
Washoe County Commissioner Jim Galloway - http://www.co.washoe.nv.us/bcc/index.php?choice=bios&com=27

Nevada Secretary of State Dean Heller - http://sos.state.nv.us/