Ga. residents challenge voting machines

ATLANTA - Upset residents are launching the stiffest challenge yet to Georgia's touch-screen electronic voting system, arguing that there's no way to ensure ballots cast are recorded and tabulated correctly.

It's a direct challenge to the electronic voting system adopted in 2002 in the aftermath of the Florida voting debacle that made Georgia the first in the nation to have uniform touchscreen voting statewide.

The critics contend that there's no guarantee that electronic ballots are tallied correctly because there's no way to independently audit the votes.
But state attorneys say the system is far less vulnerable to fraud than paper ballots, and that the machines produce a paper trail that can be audited.