This post on Boing Boing and the related news stories really make me wonder how they are ever going to get this whole mess straightened out.

Punch card ballots = hanging chads (i.e., subjective evaluation).

Electronic and touch-screen voting systems = likely crashes from time to time.  It just happens. We all use Microsoft Windows. We know it's going to happen. (Shut up, Mac users. You're in denial! Your computers crash too. I've seen it happen.)

So what are we supposed to do?

Here's an idea:

1) Use both systems -- simultaneously. The electronic votes count first since they're easier and more efficient to tally. If there is a problem such as a super close outcome, then the punch cards get used for the re-count only. (Obviously, this requires a device that records two identical votes at the same time, but that seems doable.)

2) All voters are responsible for auditing their own ballots before they leave the polls. You scan your own punch card in a reader, and then you receive a paper receipt showing how both methods were recorded. It's your responsibility to report any discrepancies on the spot. Otherwise, what you turned in is what stays in the system. Period.

Is this constitutional? Who knows. Half the eligible population, more or less, doesn't even bother to vote anyway, which makes me shake my head even more.