Editorial: Heller right on target

Thursday, Dec. 11, 2003 | 9:50 a.m.

On Wednesday Secretary of State Dean Heller selected California-based Sequoia Voting Systems to provide all of Nevada's counties with touch-screen voting machines. The 1,800 machines, which are supposed to be ready for the 2004 election, will cost $8 million. Diebold, an Ohio-based voting machine maker, lost out in the intense competition. Heller, in making his decision, noted concerns that Diebold's voting machines are vulnerable to tampering because the company's software is available on the Internet, creating a security risk. Heller also, for accuracy's sake, is requiring that each voting machine have a paper record in case there is a recount.

States are looking at buying more voting machines or updating the ones they already have. In response to the voting debacle in Florida during the 2000 presidential election, Congress has provided money to the states to purchase machines that are technologically advanced. That means no more punch cards and hanging chads. In Nevada, there are seven counties that no longer will use the punch card system.

Heller made the right decision in picking Sequoia. It also is helpful that he sided with uniformity, so that all counties will have the same machines. Clark County -- which has 70 percent of the state's population -- already uses Sequoia machines and hasn't had problems. It wouldn't have made any sense to get rid of a vendor who has been a large reason for the smooth-running elections we've had here.

Technologically superior voting machines now will be used throughout Nevada, but it would be even better if someone could discover a way to actually get people to register and vote in large numbers. That would be progress.