Reply #20: MS: Lafayette keeps voting machine printers after outcry

[Mnemosyne]

Lafayette keeps voting machine printers after outcry

2/22/2008 5:33:22 AM
Daily Journal

BY ERROL CASTENS
Daily Journal Oxford Bureau

OXFORD - After nearly two hours of impassioned testimony, Lafayette County supervisors voted Thursday to leave printers on the county's voting machines.

The Diebold touch-screen voting machines originally were bought with the printers, said District 4 Election Commissioner Cecil Locke, "to have a paper trail (and) to give the voter a sense of satisfaction - a false sense, as it turns out - that their vote has been counted."

The printers allow each voter to see a paper-and-ink recap of his choices but provide no additional security over the voting machines' three forms of electronic recording, election officials contended.

"The paper trail' is going to be exactly what you have on the screen," said Circuit Clerk Mary Alice Busby. "If (the printer) jams, you don't have a paper trail anyway."

http://www.djournal.com/pages/story.asp?ID=266766&pub=1&div=News