So it’s just another gigantic waste of government money, right?

Well, on one level, sure, you could say that. After the 2000 presidential election debacle, Congress put forth more than $3 billion to replace paper ballot voting processes with electronic, touch-screen voting machines that, on the surface, seemed to be the perfect solution. After all, if new technology is better than old methods, why not invest in it?

But, as we head into this crucial 2008 election, many of the machines are in storage. They’re covered with plastic and essentially mothballed because they’re relatively easy for hackers to tamper with, votes have been miscounted or vanished entirely, and they have an annoying habit of breaking down.

Ridicule all you want, but the fact remains that a lot of these machines will not be used in the 2008 election, and that’s exactly the way it should be. They simply haven’t proven themselves to be a reliable tool come election time.

That’s not to say old-fashioned paper ballots are the way to go over the long-term, either.

Although we’re not exactly a national political hotbed around these parts, we sure seem to have a nice mix of paper and electronics when it comes to voting. We fill in circles using our hands and a writing utensil, and then we feed the completed ballot into a machine. If we’ve made some sort of mistake, the machine immediately indicates as such, and we’re given a new ballot and another shot at exercising our right.

Maybe our system should be utilized more widely. At this stage in the game, it’s certainly better than these touch-screen machines. They’re nothing but trouble, even if it means a few billion in wasted government dollars.

— Crookston Daily Times, Aug. 25