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Here in No. Orange Co. we had computer screens where you spun a dial to highlight in red who you wanted to vote for, then pressed "enter." It made me quite nervous not to have some sort of backup paper copy. There was also not the usual privacy. In the past we had the cardboard booths with plastic garbage bag curtain (casual, but worked great!) - today I could look over fairly easily and watch my husband voting. Weird.

We have previously always voted punch card here in O.C., and the rectangles punch out with such force I don't think a hanging chad would be possible! (Grin) I really think they jumped in to this new voting system without looking at the ramifications. Reminds me of when the local schools changed to a really stupid and uninformative numeric grading system (virtually all children qualified for a passing "3," whether they were at C or A grade level), and when my husband and others complained to the school board, the "powers that be" patted the "people" on the head and ignored their concerns, which were very obvious to any "man (or woman) on the street." Three years later, they changed the grading system because of the very concerns expressed by my husband. Long story short, I think the same thing will happen with this electronic voting -- all of us are saying "But what about hacking? security? fraud?" and I'm expecting by the 2008 Presidential election we're going to finally hear "Uh, yeah, this new system has some problems..." But meanwhile what damage will be done?