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Letters: Voting machines as good as people

Dear Editor,

Voting machines would not be used to count votes for our municipal election if they were not reliable [Voting machines worrisome, Nov. 13 Letters, Langley Advance], it’s as simple as that.

Our government would not allot money to leasing voting machines if it were more reliable and less expensive to manually count votes.

In respect to reports of voting machines miscounting, we never hear about the times that voting machines have counted properly. That’s just not news; things are only reported when things go “wrong.”

Failures and malfunctions can happen with manual counting, too. They’re a common feature in our modern lives, and should not deter us from counting our votes with voting machines.

Errors are why some areas are randomly chosen to be recounted manually to ensure the accuracy of voting machines, which just increases my trust of the machines. If the areas recounted showed inaccurate counting, we’d stop using the voting machines altogether.

Newer technology, like voting machines, is almost never bug-free when first released.

Voting machines have not had the chance to be tested as thoroughly as anyone would like, and that’s a fact. It’s only a matter of time before voting machines can be protected from hacking completely, but that won’t happen without us using and feeling for weak points in the systems.

Voting, of course, would go more smoothly if there were no bugs, no recounts, no errors. However, this is not the case, no matter which way the votes are counted.

Voting machines are a step toward a smoother, faster voting system, even with the obstacles we’re currently facing.

Taylor Sheehan, Langley