Krugman on E-Voting

Posted on December 2, 2003

Paul Krugman is sounding the alarm on electronic voting now too. (Warning — New York Times, requires free registration, yadda yadda you know the drill.)

I’ll discuss what to do in a future column. But let’s be clear: the credibility of U.S. democracy may be at stake.

Couldn’t have put it better myself!

UPDATE: After reading Atrios’ take on Krugman’s article, I thought I should come back and add a note to this. Many people seem to think that the opposition to electronic voting is, at root, a partisan issue, but it’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be. The one thing that every party should be able to agree on is the need for a fair and impartial counting of votes. If that’s not guaranteed — if the system is perceived to be rigged, or just random — then democracy cannot function. Krugman leads his article with the Diebold case, which is relevant, but which also has some partisan overtones (Diebold’s CEO is a leading GOP fundraiser), which could be confusing if you’re new to the issue. Thanks to Atrios for highlighting this important distinction.