In the first place, I'd like for someone to explain to me how an optical scanner can be "hacked." It's not connected to anything -- not a phone line, not the Internet, not anything except the power cord.

In the second place, there are checks and double-checks built into the system to ensure the correct vote tally. Let me explain.

I have been the secretary of our county electoral board for 7 years. This is how we do it.

Our ballots come from the printer shrink-wrapped in packs of 50. We open 10% of the packs and count the ballots to ensure there are 50 ballots in the pack. We have NEVER found a discrepancy.

Assume we issue 1,000 ballots to a precinct. As the precinct opens the ballot packs -- and they open only one at a time as they need ballots -- the Ballot Officer counts the ballots in the pack, the Assistant Ballot Officer counts the ballots. They record the number of ballots in pack #1 on the Ballot Count form. And so on through the day. At the end of the day, they know how many ballots have been issued. For this example, let's assume they open 10 packs, count 50 ballots in each pack, and at the end of the day they have 10 ballots left over plus 10 unopened packs. If they counted 50 ballots X 10 packs, that's 500 ballots they opened. With 10 left over plus 10 unopened packs of 50 each, that means 510 of 1,000 were unused and 490 were used.

When a voter wants to vote, the voters steps up to the Pollbook Officer, states his/her name and address and shows photo ID. The Pollbook Officer confirms the voter's identity, finds the voter in the pollbook, and marks them off. The Assistant Pollbook Officer marks off the number "1" on the Pollbook Count Form and the voter is handed a ballot. When the next voter is confirmed, the number "2" is marked off on the Pollbook County Form.

At the end of the day in this example, we tell the optical scanner to print a tally tape. The tally tape shows 300 votes for one candidate, 190 for the other candidate. The pollbook count form shows 490 voters checked in, the ballot count shows 490 ballots used.

All this horseshit about hacking the scanner ignores the checks and double-checks I have just described.

Furthermore, the optical scanner must scan SOMETHING. It scans the paper ballot that the voter has marked. If the results of the election are challenged, we pull out the paper ballots and hand-count them.

Each election for the years I have been on the board we have had one or more "experts" waltz into the registrar's office and proclaim they KNOW the votes are not counted correctly. We walk them through the process then show them the door. They never return.