The Associated Press runs an article that a group of "activists" is suing various States to stop the use of electronic voting machines.

The argument is the same old, tired old, "computers are prone to hackers".

I suppose one only needs to look at Mexico's history with voting to understand that the old manual system of paper voting produces far more cries of voter fraud and "hacking" of the ballot boxes. Anything automated would improve upon paper-based voting.

Actually, any kind of voting is prone to hacking. If there is a will, there is a way. At least with computer ballots, the results are faster, and it's cheaper.

And that's what I suspect is going on with Voter Action, the organization trying to stop electronic voting. Electronic voting makes the recount less of a tool.

Take the Governor's race in Washington State in 2004. Republican Dino Rossi originally won that race by a narrow margin. Democrat Christine Gregoire bought a second recount, a computerized one, but failed. So, she bought a third recount, this time a manual count, and finally got a result in her favor.

In reality, Gregoire was able to use the time spent doing a manual recount to find votes that she could disqualify. She succeeded in finding 1,678 illegally cast votes, and lucky for her, many of those votes were cast to her opponent. The extra time she bought with the manual recount helped her party win another gubernatorial election.

This is why Voter Action wants to ban electronic voting. They want to keep the manual recount as a tool towards thwarting, delaying, and obfuscating the results of an election.

I actually feel offended that the Associated Press would characterize Voter Action as a group of "activists". They give activism a bad name. Their agenda is better served in Mexico.