#voting technology

In light of the breakdown in Iowa, it's a good idea to take another look at attempts to make voting or vote counting easier.

When bureaucrats and politicians promise to make elections easier, they are NOT necessarily intending to make them simpler.

Digital technology might be useful for a lot of things; but any voting system which does not involve old school paper at the beginning of the process of voting is always going to be highly suspect.

In last month’s local elections at Northampton County in Pennsylvania the election technology suffered a serious breakdown.

Democrat Abe Kassis, who ran for a local judicial position, initially received just 164 votes out of 55,000 cast there according to the voting machine technology used in the county. Even local Republicans admitted that something was terribly wrong with the count. Fortunately there was a paper backup to the machines. After the paper ballots were counted, Kassis was found to have narrowly defeated Republican Victor Scomillio 26,142 to 25,137 votes. Somehow the voting machines had missed 25,978 votes for Kassis.

Standards for voting machines are almost nonexistent. And those on the books are largely out of date.

Imagine what would happen if a similar glitch occurred in the 2020 presidential election in swing state Pennsylvania -- the home of Northampton County.