Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published Sept. 25, 2002

Here we go again

Don't you just love it? Last time it was former VP Al Gore complaining that voters in the three Florida counties of Broward, West Palm Beach and Miami-Dade were either incapable of casting and/or counting his votes. And now we have former Attorney General Janet Reno making the same charge in the same three counties where she lost her bid to become the Democrat candidate for governor.

But there is one important difference. As a result of the Al Gore stink, the state of Florida has spent millions of dollars replacing the "punch card" machines with state-of-the-art electronic voting machines that even Florida voters were supposed to be able to understand. All they had to do was touch the screen of the electronic voting machine where the name of the candidate was shown, and their vote would be recorded. No squinting through the little holes in the ballots. No dangling chads. No opportunity for error.

But like Al Gore, Reno lost! So she is using Al's old claim that her supporters were denied access to the polls, that her votes didn't get counted, that the finger-pointing caused smudges on the computer screens, etc., etc., and at one point threatened to take the issue into federal court.

So what's that got to do with us? Well, there are two bills before Congress right now that would mandate that every precinct in every county in every state must purchase these new electronic voting machines, at $6,000 per, prior to the 2004 presidential election. Our own Putnam County, in an effort to get ahead of the game, has already purchased new electronic machines. (These are the same machines that malfunctioned in the recent August primary, causing a 48-hour delay in tabulating their results.)

So get ready, folks. Meaning no disrespect to very well-meaning and dedicated folks, without whom an election could not be possible, can you imagine the task of training our poll workers in the operation of these new electronic marvels, that even the manufacturers of which cannot figure out how to make work? And of course the losing candidates will be in there swinging, threatening all sorts of legal action against the poll workers, election officials, machine manufacturers.

It's gonna' be fun!

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.