[EM] Upgrading Voting Machines May Take 10 Years, USA Today Reports

[DEMOREP1 at aol.com]

D- To U.S.A. EM folks especially-- the below has a direct bearing on the 
semi-emergency necessity to get more accurate election methods.
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D- 
U.S.A., State and local government spending in 1999 was 
$ 2,613.5  Billion noncapital spending
$    308.7 Billion gross capital investment

Data- Survey of Current Business, Jan 2001, pp. D-8, D-14.

Give me (and the rest of the U.S.A.) a break about the 10 year time period to 
upgrade voting machines.   

How much for paper ballots only and an emergency mobilization of the entire 
adult population to count / recount ballots on election night ???
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Upgrading Voting Machines May Take 10 Years, USA Today Reports
  
Washington, Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Industry officials estimate that replacing 
the nation's outdated punch-card voting machines can't be accomplished by the 
next presidential election in 2004, USA Today reported. 

Modernizing all of the voting equipment in the U.S. may take a decade, 
industry leaders told USA Today. 

``I don't think the industry is ready for the demand that is potentially 
going to come,'' Kimball Brace, a leading election consultant, told the 
newspaper. There are fewer than a dozen companies in the U.S. that 
manufacture voting equipment, the newspaper said. 

Congress may end up paying $2.5 billion in voting-machine upgrades, USA Today 
said. There are roughly 600,000 old punch-card and mechanical-lever voting 
machines in the U.S., according to the newspaper. 

Researchers are examining the issues surrounding the disputed punch-card 
ballots during the 2000 presidential election and how to improve the accuracy 
of voting machines. A team of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology and the California Technical Institute is already working to 
develop better voting procedures and machines for the 2004 election. 

(USA Today 2/14 A1) For the USA Today Web site, type {USAT <GO>}. 

Feb/14/2001  9:03 ET