Voting Machine Madness In Lehigh County

The old voting machines were 800 pound monsters. They resembled old time photo booths found in arcades. In Lehigh County, these heavy steel booths would be trucked and placed in the various polling locations by prisoners of the county jail. When the county was mandated to replace them with  electronic machines for the 2006 election, I felt it was unnecessary. When they immediately disposed of the old machines, I knew that was a mistake. Those old monsters were reliable, foolproof and verifiable.

Governor Wolf has decreed that votes must now have a physical receipt. Although, Tim Benyo, Chief Clerk of Elections, claims that the new paper ballots are not going back in time, it sure seems that way. Some of the old mechanical machines, in addition to tallying the votes, also had a adding machine type of paper verification. Of course the expense of replacing those old mechanical wonders would now be prohibitive. So the new plan is paper ballots, which will then be electronically scanned.

The old mechanical machines were hack-roof.  The current electronic machines are also hack-roof, not being connected to the internet.  Their replacement and disposal will be another knee-jerk reaction.

reprinted from March of 2019

UPDATE NOVEMBER 6, 2019: When you pulled the lever on the old mechanical machine shown above, you knew something was happening,  like pulling the lever on a slot machine. Even when you tapped the screen on the recent previous machine,  it showed your choices, before you tapped it again to count your ballot. With the new scanner supposedly counting your penned in ovals, it's like putting your vote into a paper shredder... There is no feedback or even an allusion of confirmation.  The poll worked did hand me a I voted sticker, but I still wondered if I really did.