County's reliance on scanned paper ballots vindicated

According to a Nov. 8 article at NewsMax.com, the election returns between incumbent Republican Sen. Norm Coleman and Democrat challenger Al Franken are undergoing a recount.

"Minnesota ballots are fed into optical scanners, which depend on voters filling in ovals to make their choice." This is how most voters cast their ballots in Lancaster.

A special concern was the statistically abnormal number of "under votes" for the senatorial race in certain Democrat leaning counties.

According to the story, "Recount teams will look for whether stray or light marks on ballots signaled a voter's preference."

Because there is a "paper trail" which enables each ballot to be physically inspected, the correctness of the final count will be virtually assured. As was noted from the 1980 presidential election, a lack of confidence in the voter count undermines public confidence in a leader.