Voting Systems Update (broadcast Friday, September 5th, 2008)

Recently installed voting machines, Barnesville, Maryland, 1944. Photo by Lewis Walker. Library of Congress image.

With the official presidential campaign season now fully underway, we'll get an update on voting machines around the country. After a problem-riddled adoption of various electronic voting systems following the 2000 election, many states are now moving towards systems that can provide a voter-verified paper trail to ensure an accurate vote. In some states, voting machines that are only a few years old are being sold for scrap or auctioned on Ebay. But are there enough of the new machines to go around -- and are some areas of the country better equipped than others? And what about ballot design? We'll talk with Larry Norden, author of "The Machinery of Democracy: Protecting Elections in an Electronic World," about voting technology around the country.