Honesty, not technology, best secures elections
All we heard the past 18 months is how our election process was at risk of hacking by foreign interests. It appears our greatest risk is actually from within, by Americans (“Florida election recount underway; tensions rise,” News, Nov 12), due to ineptness and outright illegal activities at the county level with regard to registration, absentee ballots, provisional ballots, late counting, keeping results secret for days, surprise finds of thousands of ballots significantly favoring one candidate over another, etc. The turmoil is not isolated. Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Maine and perhaps other states and counties are in jeopardy. The hype about Georgia needing to spend up to $100 million to replace 27,000 voting machines sounds more like a sales pitch to enrich someone’s pocket, as opposed to securing our elections. We’ll be much better off if we ensure that honest, ethical and competent people manage our election processes.
P.D. GOSSAGE, JOHNS CREEK
STEM, and film, both need students
It seems Georgia is primarily interested in “entertainment and film” as a career path. This is the area to which Georgia government seems to dole out financial incentives. I do not hear enough support and funding going to the education and training of young people in science, math or technology. I do not hear enough support being given to training young people in trades, so they are well enough equipped to work with industries that need well-trained technicians. Georgia Tech can handle only a limited number of highly qualified students. What about all those other students around metro Atlanta, especially in more-impoverished areas? The constant support of entertainment industries seems to be a “dumbing down” of Georgia society, and a disdain for STEM. Overall in metro Atlanta, there just is not enough talk and support going to the tough sciences.
DR. S. ADROUNY, JOHNS CREEK
