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Ohio is an election battleground state with perennial problems at the polls. So what have election officials in some precincts of the state been doing to keep their voting machines safe from tampering?



Taking the machines home with them and stashing them in their garages in the days before a big election.

I swear, every time I think electronic voting machines have reached the limit of absurdity, someone pushes the limit farther out. Now I learn that election workers have been taking the machines home with them If I ever needed more evidence that these election officials are completely clueless about security, this is it. First is the foolishness of storing these in the garage -- I wonder, do these people store their life savings in the garage? No? Not secure enough, perhaps? But then suppose that a few election officials are slightly, um, less than fully trustworthy, with a personal bias or perhaps a desire to "deliver [Ohio's] electoral votes" to a certain candidate. Somehow I think letting them take the machines home to play with for the night is a bad idea.I've offered many arguments against the use of voting machines. Here's one more: paper ballots are the only technology these officials comprehend. I wonder if any of them would allow election workers to take full ballot boxes home for a few days, unsupervised, along with an ample supply of blank ballots.(Hat tip to Bruce Schneier .)