Coffman nixes Colorado’s electronic voting machines

As of December 17, Mike Coffman, the head honcho of Colorado elections — his business cards say ‘Secretary of State’ — has decertified the electronic voting machines used in the majority of the state, citing a very long list of security concerns. This comes on the heels of Ohio’s Secretary of State releasing a study noting that Ohio’s electronic voting systems have “critical security failures.”

Coffman has declared the fallibility of electronic voting, but the responses of the various county election boards, as well as the county clerks responsible for overseeing elections.

In an interview with Denver’s Channel 7 News, Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O’Malley said the following:

This report is really just part of the larger equation for us. Once we feel we have the full picture of what the Secretary of State’s report means, we can move forward with choosing our systems and preparing for the 2008 election season.

To me, that sounds like Denver will still be using an electronic voting system, assuming they can find one that Coffman will okay.

The problems with the current selection of electronic voting machines are numerous. But we’re getting down to crunch time: the countdown to the Iowa primary is barely longer than the countdown to New Year’s Eve. For all those states hesitant about using voting machines that they have to plug in, they better make a decision and fast! After all, even Kinko’s isn’t up to delivering the 2.5 million ballots the state of Colorado needs.