Throw out the voting machines

Many of us have been saying this for a long time, but now, maybe, it's coming from a semi-official source:

Paperless electronic voting machines used throughout the Washington region and much of the country "cannot be made secure," according to draft recommendations issued this week by a federal agency that advises the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The assessment by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one of the government's premier research centers, is the most sweeping condemnation of such voting systems by a federal agency.

It's time to stop worrying about the fact that the government forced thousands of local election officials to waste millions upon millions of dollars on faulty machines. It's time to junk the machines and either go back to paper ballots or, at least, go to something with a verifiable paper trail.