CA: Secretary of State Candidates Debate Electronic Voting (McPherson v. Bowen)

Los Angeles Times ^ | October 19, 2006 | Seema Mehta

[calcowgirl]

Incumbent McPherson defends reliability of the machines as challenger Bowen says they need stricter monitoring.

In their only face-to-face debate before the November election, Secretary of State Bruce McPherson and his challenger, state Sen. Debra Bowen, on Wednesday sharply disagreed about the reliability and vulnerability of electronic-voting machines used by many California counties.

Bowen, a Democrat from Marina del Rey, argued that electronic slot machines face greater scrutiny than machines that count votes in nearly two dozen of the state's 58 counties.

If elected, she said, she would revisit the systems that have been approved by the state, and create stricter monitoring requirements.

"The more reviews we have, the more questions are raised. The only way to reassure people is to open up this whole process," said Bowen, who during the debate held up a small gold office key similar to one used by a Princeton professor to break into a Diebold voting machine.

"I want to reassure Californians that voting systems are secure and accurate and safe by opening up the process," she said. "There are far too many secrets."

McPherson argued that he had created the strictest standards in the nation for certifying the machines, and that because of their use, blind and disabled voters were for the first time able to cast their ballots independently and privately.

McPherson said that he restored $169 million the federal government was withholding from the state, certified five different types of electronic voting machines, put on two successful elections, reached out to the state's ethnic communities, and created faxable ballots for members of the military and others living overseas.

"I'm in fact running because of the crises in confidence we have in this country regarding our voting systems," Bowen said. "California voters have not been served well by Mr. McPherson ..."

[calcowgirl]

For CBS/Chron archived debate videos:

Secretary of State
Bruce McPherson (R) and Debra Bowen (D). October 18, 2006 (Archived)

Insurance Commissioner
Steve Poizner (R) and Cruz Bustamante (D). October 11, 2006 (Archived)

Controller
Tony Strickland (R) and John Chiang (D). October 10, 2006 (Archived)

Attorney General
Chuck Poochigian, Jerry Brown. October 5, 2006 (Archived)

[Carry_Okie]

I don't want electronic voting at all.

[CounterCounterCulture]

Me neither. I just found out I'm shown to have voted in 4 out of the last 5 elections, and I never miss an election. McPherson looks like a joke defending this crapola.