We wouldn't be in this mess if Florida had ordered thinner paper for its punch-card ballots six years ago.
Let me rephrase that. We'd still be in a mess. We just wouldn't know it.
And the Emery County clerk wouldn't be scrambling to come up with $40,000 because he just voided the warranty on a bunch of new electronic voting machines.
Maybe sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Or as they say in the voting business, HAVA nice day.
HAVA stands for the Help America Vote Act. That was Congress' response to the 2000 Election. It didn't go as far as to mandate that states turn to electronic voting devices, but it did impose enough regulations that states had little choice.
Washington is good at that. No one there will tell you exactly where to go. They'll just nudge you there with all the subtlety of a bumper car at an amusement park.
But, OK. Why not bring voting into the 21st century? Why hang onto a system that is mildly flawed, even if most people don't know it?
Why schedule a root canal if you don't really need one?
Here's democracy's nasty little secret: No one has yet invented a foolproof voting system. Once you get beyond counting the paper ballots of about 10 people, errors begin to occur with a predictable frequency.
And once states began switching to electronic voting machines, debates over accuracy, computer programs, independent verification and the ability to tamper with the system began to spread like Mormon crickets on a June day in the west desert. Maryland's House just voted 137-0 to back away from its paperless Diebold voting machines this year and use paper ballots and an optical scan system instead.
When was the last time you heard of a legislature doing anything unanimously?
But Diebold isn't the only system causing doubts. Sequoia and ES&S also have had problems in various parts of the country.
So it's understandable why Emery County Clerk-Auditor Bruce Funk was worried enough, when he thought he saw some problems, to get an independent group to examine the Diebold machines his county was getting ready to use. Utah's lieutenant governor's office contracted with Diebold to handle the state's ballots (complete with paper receipts, unlike in Maryland).
It was understandable, but not too bright. Once a third party opened the machines, it voided Diebold's warranty. Anyone who ever bought an electronic device should have known that. And once an unauthorized third party started messing with the equipment, the state had no guarantee that the machines hadn't been compromised, so it no longer could certify them. It will take about $40,000 to make things right.
State officials are angry at Funk. That's an understatement. State elections office director Michael Cragun doesn't think what Funk did even qualifies as a warning to other counties. "I don't think any other county clerk needs to hear this message," he told me. "They understand the responsibility they have to the public."
But how should worries be addressed? State officials have a "Diebold or die" attitude. But just because they chose the company for the contract, can't they still be a little skeptical? Nevada, for example, has tough independent testing in place to make sure its slot machines are fair. Shouldn't voting be more important than that?
We may soon all look back on this controversy and laugh. Davis County Clerk-Auditor Steve Rawlings told me the Farmington municipal election used Diebold machines last year and had no problems. There were 3,179 votes cast, without a flaw.
At least none anyone could pinpoint. Which brings us back to that state of blissful ignorance in an imperfect democracy.
HAVA nice day.
Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com