As the news blathers on about the hanging chads and punch-card ballots in the California recall, I’m thinking at least they leave some evidence of your vote behind.

What the voter should be up in arms about is the paper-trail-less touchscreens and dubious voting machines.

When you use a touchscreen voting machine, all evidence of your vote vanishes. You truly do become a number, a number that can easily be manipulated, and there’s no proof to your defense.

This is the “new technology” that the this right-wing administration and their cohorts want to foist on the entire country in time for the 2004 elections, and for California, not incidentally, just in time for their March election, when the recount vote will be tried again.

Get together in your community and protect the sanctity of your vote. Say “no” to the new machines. What’s wrong with pencil and paper, anyway? Put some people to work.

Bia Winter, Mount Vernon