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Return to paper ballots

Sameer Parekh Berkeley
Thursday November 07, 2002

To the Editor: 

 

Yesterday I voted using one of those new Accuvote-TS systems the city spent a great deal of money on, ostensibly to secure more reliable voting. The intent was to give citizens a greater assurance that their vote was being counted. The Accuvote-TS system, however, had the opposite effect. 

I am a former software entrepreneur. I am no Luddite. I know computer technology well enough that I trust paper ballots far more than I will trust a touch screen computer to record my vote. While with paper ballots there are actual ballot boxes that have to be thrown into the bay in order to accomplish wholesale voter fraud, it only takes a few clicks of a mouse to commit fraud in an electronic voter system. The Accuvote-TS provides for no audit trail and no accountability. 

To add insult to injury, the voting “booths” were hardly booths. What has happened to the secret ballot? There was no privacy given to me when I was voting. Everyone in the room could have seen how I voted. 

Please give us back the paper ballot. 

 

Sameer Parekh 

Berkeley