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L.A. County Trying Touch Voting Machines

I like technology, but now I'm for paper ballots and vote by mail.

See this NBC Nightly News story, LA County built its new voting machines from scratch. Will they be ready? I'd add, will the system be full-proof secure?

I actually know Dean Logan, the Los Angeles County Elections supervisor who is interviewed in the story. He and I were peers when I was the King County Emergency Management director and he was the King County elections supervisor.  He did some good things when he was there and he also "went through the fire." If it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger!

Given what I know about cybersecurity and the challenges of keeping our elections free from outside interference, meaning transnational or domestic, we need to take every precaution to protect the election systems in our nation. If you watch the video version of the link, you will see that a paper ballot is produced at the end of the process — by each individual voter. 

Yes, the new system will eliminate the "hanging chad" issue from punch cards in the 2000 presidential election, but at what risk? 

The other lesson is the challenge of self-developing software and buying the equipment. $300M for one county — ouch!

Eric Holdeman is a contributing writer for Emergency Management magazine and is the former director of the King County, Wash., Office of Emergency Management.