Slated to speak on Thursday

I am slated to speak at the public hearing on Thursday.

This Thursday (11-17) at the Westin Convention Center hotel from 1 to 6 pm, four companies will display their voting machines. The public is invited to try the machines and give their opinions to county officials.

Audrey Glickman about the voting machine issue:

Don't forget about the voting machine issue. Look at www.VotePA.us. This matter is also eminently important, due to the potential of stealing votes. I firmly believe that the Republicans stole the votes in the last two major elections. We have to encourage our state legislators to support H.B.2000 and S.B. 977, because we don't want to be able to buy any smarmy voting machines.

The counties have to choose before the end of this year, in order to get the money that the state is redistributing from the feds under the Help America Vote Act. The money likely won't pay for the whole thing, but our current machines are not good under HAVA, mostly because of the accessibility issues. They are, however, reliable, counting-wise.

My personal favorite machine is the AccuPoll machine, which is made by a company that started itself to address the questionable practices by the other machine companies. Its code is open for all to see, and it runs on UNIX. (It does not need hackable Windows to tally.) The company is open and honest, and the machine produces a paper report which the voter can check his votes and then deposit the paper into an official ballot box for recounting. (You don't recount the bits and bytes.) It's also highly handicapped-accessible.

Besides, it's supported in the eastern United States by local company UniSys. We need the business, on top of everything!

Time to start lobbying that, too. Please spread the word. There is a public display of voting machines on the 17th, and a hearing by the county officials at 5:00 that day (not well-scheduled with the public display, it seems).

- Audrey