Demand a paper trail for your vote!
Clive Thompson (one of my favorite journalists) had an excellent article on voting machines and the myriad ways they suck. Which is not to say that I’m opposed to electronic voting. But based on everything I’ve read about the companies that make them, their complete lack of transparency, and the vast array of problems that have been found by pretty much every security review I’ve ever seen, I deeply mistrust the current crop of electronic voting machines.
For now, I want a guaranteed paper ballot so we can actually recheck and verify the results of the 2008 election. As it turns out, there is a bill, the “Confidence in Voting Act of 2008″, that would do just that. If you care about this as well, right now would be an excellent time to communicate that to your representative about the issue!
MoveOn.org is running a petition campaign about this or you can also check out http://www.GetItStraightBy2008.org and fill out their petition as well.
Hi! My name is Alex Miller and I live in St. Louis. I write code for a living and currently work for 
if you’re into verifiable and transparent voting systems, check out this google tech talk on such a system _without_ a paper trail…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEI9Wn_hPWE
The last time I voted, they had two options. One was a Diebold electronic machine. The other was a large sheet of cardstock with huge boxes to fill in with a pen. You filled it out, dropped it into a box, and it scanned the votes. Easy, simple, and leaves a trail.
The best part? When lines started getting long, they figured out they could let people fan out into the room and everybody grabbed a sheet of paper and voted at once, in parallel. With high-tech machines, lines are awful. With a simple paper ballot, everyone can vote in parallel (up to the capacity of the room), and it goes a LOT faster, it is easier, and verifiable. And cheap. Should I go on?
The person who can invent a safe, secure, easy way to vote online will make more money than they can spend in a lifetime.