varjohaltia | Florida Elections

I was driving home yesterday, and listened to this story on NPR.

That's when I heard this:

Later at his office, Merriman says he had to reorganize the system.

"One of the lessons that we learned — which is critical to paper ballots — is that you have to treat these ballots like they're evidence," he says.

This means giving the ballots a strict chain of custody from start to finish. But that's only one problem with optically scanned paper ballots — a voting system that for the first time this year will be used by most Americans.

I still can't wrap my brain around this. There are / were precincts in this country where ballots AREN'T treated with a secure chain of custody? Seems to me that hanging chad was the least of their problems...