NC is in a hurry to buy new voting equipment. Not so fast!

This is what already happening in North Carolina.  According to Charlotte Observer:

Makers of voting machines are focusing on North Carolina's election officials who will be looking for new machines after problems with state and local votes in November.

Companies are bringing their latest machinery to Raleigh on Monday so a commission on electronic voting can examine them as they work toward setting standards before the 2006 primaries.

New machines would cost about $80 million, and North Carolina plans to allow just a handful of companies to operate in the state. Accuracy is a key ingredient officials are seeking.

More below...

If you remember NC lost more than 4,4000 votes in Coastal Carteret County. Those were not Diebold machines, but machines from California-based company UniLect.  Those are the same UniLect Corp. machines/software that malfunctioned in some Ohio precincts, the same machines that failed in Virginia, same UniLect machines that, as company claims, "never had a significant hardware or software election problem" and  "never lost even a single vote".

Now local officials are in a hurry to fix these problems by buying "better" electronic voting machines, but, considering all currently existing machines are paperless, how they are going to establish accuracy? They are about to spend $80 million for something that may not be better, or may be even worse (theoretically, of course, as there is no way to know without paper trail).  There are no machines with open source software available today (which should be one of the requirements for e-voting machines) and if some kind of reform eventually comes through, NC (and probably other states) won't have any money left to act on it.  

It is a really urgent issue - having some kind of standard for e-voting machines.  Before that happens, any changes to local voting systems should be put on hold.  I am not sure what is the best way to approach this, but may be calling your Board of Election, questioning paperless voting, asking what are they doing about it will be a place to start.

Here is NC Board of Election info:
Mailing Address:  PO Box 27255, Raleigh, NC 27611-7255 Main Number: [phone]

2006 is awfully close...