Legislators are finally getting the message about faulty electronic voting machines, and perhaps some of these machines will get auditable paper trails in time for the 2008 election. The House of Representatives is working on a bill that will require better accountability for the electronic ballot systems for all Federal elections, starting with the fall 2008 elections.

The really galling part of this is that all this was completely avoidable. Many of us in the IT business saw this train coming a long way off. Unfortunately, a lot of local governments, who buy most voting equipment, were happy to ignore technical experts without a financial stake in the outcome and instead fell hook, line, and sinker for the promises of vendors, who were giddy over the windfall market that fell into their laps--nearly every voting machine in America was going to be replaced!

The taxpayers get to pay twice for this fiasco, but at least it is going to get fixed.