By Jerry Depew, Iowa Voters
Nine Iowa counties that used touchscreen voting machines as part of their equipment in each precinct have decided to get rid of them. Their change of heart was prompted by the legislature’s orders that all votes must be put on paper. Counties had to add paper trail printers to their touchscreens or replace the touchscreens. The counties opting to replace are Benton, Black Hawk, Clinton, Davis, Floyd, Linn, Scott, Story, and Wright. This covers some of Iowa’s biggest cities: Waterloo, Cedar Rapids, Davenport and Ames.
If you live in one of these counties and if you appreciate this move by your auditor, send a thank you note.
Other counties have passed up this opportunity to improve their voting equipment. Some of them, such as my county, seem to take every opportunity to use the paperless gadgets despite the known flaws (high failure rates, impossible recounts). Simple paper ballots have been abandoned even in school board races and bond issues where only one item is being voted on. It would appear to be far cheaper to use ordinary paper and count by hand than to pay for special scanned ballots or to pay for programming of touchscreens when the vote is merely “YES” or “NO”.