The Bombay Ballot

Slate.com ^ | September 29, 2004 | Eric Weiner

[El Conservador]

The Bombay Ballot What the U.S. can learn from India's electronic voting machines. By Eric Weiner Posted Wednesday, Sept. 29, 2004, at 5:17 AM PT

Remember the Cold War tale of Soviet and American scientists racing to solve the problem of writing in zero gravity? NASA spent a decade and millions of dollars developing the high-tech Astronaut Pen. The Soviets solved the problem another way: They used a pencil.

The story turns out to be (mostly) urban legend, but the lesson holds true. Sometimes less is more. That seems to be the case as the world's largest democracy, India, and the world's most powerful, the United States, scramble to solve another technological puzzle: How to count votes accurately and transparently.

[El Conservador]

The problem is not voting systems, it's voters!!!

[Strategerist]

Remember the Cold War tale of Soviet and American scientists racing to solve the problem of writing in zero gravity? NASA spent a decade and millions of dollars developing the high-tech Astronaut Pen. The Soviets solved the problem another way: They used a pencil. The story turns out to be (mostly) urban legend, but the lesson holds true.

The space pen/pencil story isn't just "(mostly) urban legend, it's flat out FALSE.

How does a false story uphold a "lesson??" Shades of CBS and the memos....

[G.Mason]

"The problem is not voting systems, it's voters!!!"

That needs to be said over, and over, until it sinks in.

It is not only the voters who cannot navigate the "how to vote" waters, but also those that attempt to mislead and cause mayhem to our democratic processes.

In the case of the latter, they should be penalized severely, if found to be speading mistrust and panic in the general populace by the defamation of what is a basically sound system.