How We Vote
California says “No,” but Utah’s a Go
By Lucy Burningham, 8-01-05
Electronic voting machines aren't good enough for California, but they're fine for Utah. Last week California rejected Diebold’s electronic voting machines after testing revealed screen freezes and printer jams at a failure rate of 10 percent. The Diebold machines happen to be the same ones purchased by the state of Utah for $27 million. Despite California’s decision to ditch the machines, Utah still plans to use the voting machines, which should be in place by June 2006 for primary elections, reports the Deseret News.
Some Utahns have already protested the use of electronic voting machines. The most vocal opponent of Diebold’s systems, Kathy Dopp, founder of Utah Count Votes, outlined her objections to the machines for New West in June, and she doesn’t seem to be giving up the fight. With California’s decision to drop Diebold, Dopp’s campaign may get an immediate boost of public support. But it might take voting machine failure on Utah soil to persuade state officials to stick with electronic counts of paper ballots.
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I don't want to sound an alarm about conspiracies and the like, but we should all be aware of the ever-eroding right to vote, whether we live in Utah, Ohio, or abroad. California made the right choice.