Touch and go

Alternate title: “Déjà vu all over again.”

This holiday season saw a couple of my traditions bite the dust. Couldn’t see the ball drop in Times Square, only to find out later it was the 100th anniversary of the event. Bummer. On New Year’s Day I opted to give up on the Tournament of Roses parade – decidedly not a listening event!

Serendipity! A channel change led me to CNN’s all-day “Ballot Bowl,” a chance to get to know all the candidates – live from Iowa and New Hampshire eateries and living rooms, one-on-one and up close and personal. Kudos to CNN for the outstanding coverage.

I came away with a firm conviction that the more I hear from Gov. Mike Huckabee the scarier he gets. Make certain you know exactly where this guy aims to take our country before you are charmed by his folksy, faith-based manner.

Now, to the subject of this post:

Because the TV was on CNN I caught a couple of hours of “The Situation Room” with Wolf Blitzer (TRANSCRIPT), staying with him because he repeatedly teased a story which holds my interest.

A few months back I posed a question in this blog’s left-hand column: “What issue comes up about a week before elections, then dies away immediately thereafter?”

The issue is one which trumps every other issue brought up by any candidate in this race. It has plagued me since Election 2000.

Electronic voting machines – can you trust your vote to count?

Blitzer reported, “As primaries draw near, some states are finding serious problems already with their electronic voting machines, and they're ready to give e-voting a grade of ‘F.’ "

Correspondent Carol Costello added, “You know, Wolf, you would think after all the problems we had with hanging chads in 2000 and voting machine malfunctions in 2004 and 2006, voting machines across the country would work by now. But, a few days before caucuses and primaries get under way, they're not.”

Colorado’s Secretary of State Mike Coffman, who says the machines can be shut down or corrupted with a simple magnet or even a Blackberry, said,”At the end of the day, what I think is most important is that the voters have confidence that this equipment is secure from being tampered with, and that their votes could be accurately counted.”

Well, duh.

Remember Ohio in 2004? Here’s what that state’s secretary of state, Jennifer Brunner, had to say about the machines: “They have done the job in the past with difficulty, and I could probably best analogize it to a vehicle with a bad axle, that at some point the wheels are going to fall off, and we're just going to be hopeful that in using them for one more election that we'll be able to get through.”

Just “one more election?” How about arguably the most important election in this country’s history?

OK, we’ve heard this crap for seven years now. What good does it do to give a lame, milguetoast report just days before votes are cast, then ignore the problem for another year?

Damn it! When is something going to be done about this – so that the next time you go into a voting booth and touch your favorite candidate’s name on the screen, you can know for certain who actually got your vote?

PEOPLE POWER: Contact your state election commission and your state legislator or assembleman and demand machines which yield a paper ballot as proof their innards aren’t rigged.